Reworking the 'loths for 3.5 (cause I don't like WotC's attempts)

[Zaydos]

As it says in the title I was, disappointed by WotC's attempt at making the yugoloths for 3.0/3.5, or at least how they did it with Arcanaloths and Ultroloths (I am actually fairly pleased with mezzoloths for example). So a few years ago I made my own versions and I've decided I'll post them here and see what people think about them. The arcanaloth's spells known are woefully unoptimized because, despite being the optimizer of my group even then, I didn't bother to optimize much and played mostly blaster mages (I still prefer to play blaster mages, although I now generally go for Conjuration based blasting).

If people like these three I might update some of the other 2e loths on request.


Arcanaloth
Always NE; Medium Outsider (Evil, yugoloth) CR 14
Init: +7; Senses darkvision 60-ft, Listen +19, Spot +19
Languages: All (see natural polyglot below), Telepathy 100-ft.
AC 30, t 15, FF 27; (+3 Dex, +15 natural, +2 Deflection)
hp 78 (12 HD); DR 10/good
Immune acid, mind-affecting spells/effects, poison, disease
Resist: Cold 10, Electricity 10, and Fire 10; SR 25
Fort +10, Ref +11, Will +12
Speed 30-ft, fly 60-ft (good); Flight
Melee 2 claws +12 each (1d4 plus poison) and bite +7 (1d6)
Space 5-ft; Reach 5-ft
Base Atk +12; Grp +12
Attack Options: Sudden Maximize, Empower Spell.
Special Actions: Summon Yugoloth.
Combat Gear: Potion of Dragonskin (Blue), Wand of Lightning Bolt (5 charges), Robe of Retaliation.
Spell-like Abilities (CL 12th)
At will: Alter Self, Animate Dead, Charm Person, Contagion, Crushing Despair, Darkness, Greater Teleport (self and 50-lb of gear only), Heat Metal, Invisibility (self only), Magic Missile.
1/day: Orb of Force, Fear, Major Image.
(Typical) Sorcerer Spells Known (CL 12th):
6th: (3/day) – Disintegrate (+15 ranged touch, CL 12th)
5th: (5/day) – Greater Fireburst (DC 19, CL 12th), mass fire shield
4th: (7/day) – enervation (+15 ranged touch), wall of fire (DC 18, CL 12th), orb of cold (+15 ranged touch; CL 12th).
3rd (7/day) – scintillating sphere (DC 17; CL 12th), chain missile, haste, vampiric touch (+12 melee touch, 6d6 damage; gains), deeper darkvision
2nd (7/day) – false life, scorching ray (+15 ranged touch; CL 12th), Fireburst (DC 16, CL 12th), scintillating scales, see invisibility
1st (7/day) – Lesser Orb of Sound, Mage Armor, Shield, Alarm, Tenser’s Floating Disc
0 (6/day) – detect magic, read magic, prestidigitation, darkness, ghost sound, amanuensis, acid splash, ray of frost, sonic snap.
Abilities Str 10, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 20, Wis 18, Cha 19
Feats: Combat Casting, Empower Spell, Improved Initiative, Sudden Maximize, Quicken Spell-like Ability (Invisibility).
Skills: Bluff +23, Concentration +17 (+21 to cast on the defensive), Diplomacy +23, Gather Information +19, Intimidate +21, Knowledge (arcane) +20, Knowledge (the Planes) +20, Knowledge (any one other) +15, Profession (Scribe) +19, Listen +19, Sense Motive +19, Spellcraft +22, Spot +19, Use Magic Device +19. They gain a +4 racial bonus on Bluff checks and a +10 racial bonus to Profession (Scribe).
Special Qualities: Flight, Natural Polyglot.
Possessions: combat gear plus Ring of Protection +2.
Poison (Ex): Initial and Secondary damage 2 Str; Fort DC 18 to resist.
Flight (Sp): They are continuously under the effects of a fly spell; if this effect is dispelled they may resume it with a standard action.
Natural Polyglot (Su): They are under the effect of a continual tongues ability. They also automatically learn (permanently) any language they hear spoken for at least one minute, and retain this knowledge even in anti-magic.
Summon Yugoloth (Su): Once per day they may summon 1d6 mezzoloths or another arcanaloth with a 40% chance of success; this is the equivalent to a 5th level spell.

Ultraloth
Always NE; Medium Outsider (Evil, yugoloth) CR 18
Init: +11; Senses darkvision 60-ft, Listen +36, Spot +36
Languages: Abyssal, Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Yugoloth; Telepathy 100-ft.
AC 36, t 16, FF 32; (+4 Dex, +18 natural, +2 armor, +2 Def)
hp 239 (18 HD); DR 15/good and DR 5/silver
Immune acid, poison, disease
Resist: Cold 10, Electricity 10, and Fire 10; SR 30
Fort +17, Ref +15, Will +15
Speed 30-ft
Melee +3 Longsword +31/+26/+21/+16 (1d8+15 +2d6 versus good; 17-20/x2)
Space 5-ft; Reach 5-ft
Base Atk +18; Grp +30
Special Actions: Summon Yugoloth, Hypnotic Gaze.
Combat Gear: Potion of Cure Serious Wounds.
Spell-like Abilities (CL 18th)
Always Active (if dispelled it may resume them as a Free Action): Arcane Sight, Detect Chaos/Evil/Good/Law, Detect Poison, Detect Scrying, Discern Lies, Mind Blank (self only), Pass without Trace, Read Magic, True Seeing.
At will: Alter Self, Animate Dead, Charm Person, Contagion, Crushing Despair, Deeper Darkness, Desecrate, Fear, Fly, Greater Teleport (self and 50-lb of gear only), Invisibility (self only), Ray of Enfeeblement, Ray of Exhaustion, Scorching Ray, Suggestion.
3/day: Binding, Charm Monster, Enervation, Geas/Quest, Mass Suggestion, Orb of Sound, Waves of Exhaustion.
1/day: Blasphemy, Mass Charm Monster, Mass Hold Monster, Symbol of Death
Abilities: Str 30, Dex 25, Con 29, Int 26, Wis 24, Cha 27
Feats: Ability Focus (Hypnotic Gaze), Improved Initiative, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quicken Spell-like Ability (Orb of Sound), Weapon Focus (Longsword), Weapon Focus (Ray), Weapon Specialization (Longsword).
Skills: Bluff +29, Concentration +30, Diplomacy +33, Gather Information +29, Intimidate +35, Knowledge (the Planes) +29, Knowledge (any one other) +29, Listen +36, Sense Motive +29, Spellcraft +29, Search +37, Spot +36, Use Magic Device +29. They gain a +8 on Search, Spot and Listen checks; they gain a +4 on Intimidate checks.
Special Qualities: Contagious Edge, Empower Weapon, Weapon Mastery
Possessions: combat gear plus Bracers of Armor +2 and Ring of Protection +2, +1 Keen Longsword.
Hypnotic Gaze (Su): Any creature meeting an ultraloth’s gaze must make a Will save (DC 29) or be fascinated for as long as they meet the ultraloth’s gaze and 2 rounds afterwards, if they re-meet the gaze while still fascinated it resets the duration. Unlike normal fascination this effect is not ended by obvious threats, although they allow a new save at +4.
Summon Yugoloth (Su): An ultraloth may summon 1 of each of the other lesser varieties of yugoloth each day. Each creature requires a different use of this ability to summon. This is the equivalent of an 8th level spell.
Contagious Edge (Su): Any slashing or piercing weapon wielded by an ultraloth carries it's contangion spell-like ability on the first successful attack it makes each round.
Empower Weapon (Su): Whenever an ultraloth wields a weapon it is treated as having a +3 enhancement bonus and the unholy property; if it already has an enhancement bonus use the better value and if it already has the unholy property the two do not stack.
Weapon Mastery (Ex): An ultraloth may take feats as if it had 14 levels of fighter, plus any actual fighter levels it obtains.

PISCOLOTH
Medium-Size Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar, Aquatic)
Hit Dice: 12d8+72 (126 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 20 ft., swim 50 ft.
AC: 26 (+1 Dex, +15 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 25
Base Attack/Grapple: +12/+17
Attack: 2 pincers +16 melee (2d6+4/17-20/x3) and 8 tentacles +14 melee (paralysis)
Face/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Augmented critical, paralysis, spell-like abilities, summon yugoloth
Special Qualities: All-around vision, Amphibious, DR 10/good, Immunity to the River Styx, outsider traits, SR 22, yugoloth traits (telepathy, immunity to acid, disease and poison, telepathy 100-ft, resistance to fire, cold, and electricity 10).
Saves: Fort +14, Ref +9, Will +8
Abilities: Str 19, Dex 12, Con 22, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 15
Skills: Concentration +21, Intimidate +20, Hide +16, Listen +15, Move Silently +16, Search +15, Sense Motive +15, Spot +16, Swim +13.
b: Multiattack, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Intimidate), Improved Critical (pincer)
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground (Hades)
Organization: Solitary, squad (4–8), or platoon (10–18)
Challenge Rating: 13
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Always neutral evil
Advancement: 13–18 HD (Medium-size); 19–27 HD
(Large)
Paralysis (Ex): Those hit by a piscoloth’s tentacle attack must make a Fortitude save (DC 22) or be paralyzed for 1d6+1 rounds.
Spell-Like Abilities: At will—alter self, blink, fear, contagion, detect good, detect magic, greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs of objects only), jump (self only), protection from good, scare, see invisibility; 3/day—charm person, meld into stone, phantasmal killer, produce flame, stinking cloud. Caster level 12th; save DC 12 + spell level.
Summon Yugoloth (Sp): Three times per day, a piscoloth can attempt to summon 1d3 mezzoloths or 1d3+1 canoloths with a 60% chance of success (result of 41–100 on d%).

[akma]

The main problam with Yugoloths is that you never, ever see them. I onle see them mentioned in context of being the merceneries of the blood war, and one time I even saw someone call them lawfull and nobody corrected him.
Also, I remmember reading about lords of baator and demon princes, but I never heard about lords of Yugoloth.
I guess for some reason people can`t vision them as villains, and that`s their main problam.

Pictures of the yugoloths would realy help vision them.
The save DC for the ultraloth gaze seems too high. Also, how exectly someone remeets the gaze?

[Eldan]

The problems you mention mainly stem not from the fact that they don't do much, but that Wizards just seems to have disliked them a lot. AD&D Planescape books are full of Yugoloth Material. The campaign setting had stats for Loths, but not demons or devils. Hellbound, Faces of Evil and Planes of Conflict all talked about them a lot.
It's just that in 3.X, they get... stats and nothing else. A Fiendish Codex III would have been very helpful.

Now, as to those stats: (I'm not good at judging stats)

I like the Arcanoloth, but I'm not sure if they should really have such a high dexterity as mages. Otherwise, very fitting.

The Ultraloth could probably stand to be a tad stronger, it's supposed to be on the same tier as Balors and Pit Fiends. I know they didn't have that in their old stats, but I always felt they should have some kind of resistance to magical divination/detection magic, as they pretty much erase their identities.

The Piscoloth: I may be misremembering, but weren't they quite a bit more stupid than your loth here? It's on the level of a human, after all.

[akma]

The problems you mention mainly stem not from the fact that they don't do much, but that Wizards just seems to have disliked them a lot.

Any idea why?

[Eldan]

They probably thought a third race of fiend was unnecessary, and Demon and Devil had more basis in real world mythology and pop culture than the Daemons. Which is not entirely untrue, I must admit. I'm biased, though, Shemeshka's writings on Planewalker were some of the first pure D&D fluff I ever read, and they are almost entirely about the loths.

[Zaydos]

The problems you mention mainly stem not from the fact that they don't do much, but that Wizards just seems to have disliked them a lot. AD&D Planescape books are full of Yugoloth Material. The campaign setting had stats for Loths, but not demons or devils. Hellbound, Faces of Evil and Planes of Conflict all talked about them a lot.
It's just that in 3.X, they get... stats and nothing else. A Fiendish Codex III would have been very helpful.

Now, as to those stats: (I'm not good at judging stats)

I like the Arcanoloth, but I'm not sure if they should really have such a high dexterity as mages. Otherwise, very fitting.

The Ultraloth could probably stand to be a tad stronger, it's supposed to be on the same tier as Balors and Pit Fiends. I know they didn't have that in their old stats, but I always felt they should have some kind of resistance to magical divination/detection magic, as they pretty much erase their identities.

The Piscoloth: I may be misremembering, but weren't they quite a bit more stupid than your loth here? It's on the level of a human, after all.

I didn't have Planes of Conflict or Faces of Evil when I made these just Planescape MC I, II, and III and the Blood War box set (made me love yugoloths).

I gave arcanoloth the Dex in large part for game mechanical reasons and because most fiends in 3.X have a fairly decent Dex (Osyluths have 21 and are large scorpion-skeleton creatures).

Ultroloth could probaby still use some more stuff to make them actually on par with Pit Fiend and Balor and I think divination resistance is a good first step; maybe continual mind blank on themselves?

Piscoloths I had to check and they have 11-12 Int in the Outer Planes MC in 2e.

[Eldan]

Also, I'm not sure about their SLAs. I mean, it's probably those they had in AD&D, sure (don't have the books around right now), but coming from Hades, I keep thinking they should also have spells to crush emotions (a stronger crushing despair?) and cause diseases. Give them Contagion.

[Zaydos]

Gave them both Crushing Despair, and Contagion at will; when I first made these I didn't know that the Oinoloth was 2e (since I only heard about it in the 3.0 Manual of the Planes).

Also gave Ultroloths always active Mind Blank, as well as Waves of Exhaustion and Charm Monster 3/day and Mass Hold Monster and Mass Charm Monster 1/day since they fit it. Might give them some divination spells too since they were never quite the battlefield powerhouse of a pit fiend or balor, but they were canny and had the best laid plans.

[LOTRfan]

Besides the General and the Altraloths, do the Yugoloths have any recognizable leaders in Planescape?

[The Tygre]

The oinoloth and the enigmatic baernaloths are usually acknowledged as the top of that totem pole.

[Zaydos]

The General is above the Oinoloth (who used to be an Atraloth but is currently just a powerful Ultroloth), though.

[Eldan]

Another thing I noticed: shouldn't a Piscoloth be able to breathe water? GIving it the aquatic subtype and amphibious quality should help.

I would probably also add Immunity to disease to Yugoloth traits, otherwise, they won't make it long in the Wastes

[Zaydos]

Another thing I noticed: shouldn't a Piscoloth be able to breathe water? GIving it the aquatic subtype and amphibious quality should help.

I would probably also add Immunity to disease to Yugoloth traits, otherwise, they won't make it long in the Wastes

Couldn't agree more. It is odd that in 2e and 3.X they didn't have immunity to disease (although Manual of the Planes seems to assume most diseases don't affect outsiders and the Oinoloth can create ones that affect other yugoloths... so I might have been a bit hasty giving them all immunity to disease). Also changed Air Walk to Fly on Ultroloths and gave them a new ability that makes their first attack with a slashing a piercing weapon each round carry their Contagion SLA. Will also give piscoloths explicit immunity to the River Styx.