[3.5]Improved Monster Classes- Still Alive, and taking requests!

[Kobold-Bard]

Just a reminder for Gorgon that you need to add Werewhathaveyou to the Wererhino's title so people can find it.

[AugustNights]

Unholy Scion: Why can't it be taken at first level? Why should one wait until second level?

Skiurid
HD=D4

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{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special

1st|

+0

|

+0

|

+2

|

+0

| Skiurid Body,Sla, Being tiny, Weapon finesse[/table]

Skills: 6+intel modfier Class skills Balance,Cimb,Jump,Listen, Move Silently, Spot and Survival

Skiurid Body The Skiurid loses all other racial traits and bonuses and gains magical beast traits (Low Light Vision and Darkvision 60 feet.) It is a tiny sized and has a base speed of 30 feat. It has two natural claw attacks dealing 1d2+Str damage each, and a secondary bite attack that deals 1d3+1/2Str damage
It does not have hands capable of fine manipulation, and cannot wield a weapon in either set of its paws.

Sla: A Skiurid can cast Dimension door 1/Hd/day but w the max range is of 40ft+5ft/HD.
It can also cast Darkness 1/3Hd a Day. This Sla fuctions as the normal darkness until the Skiurid attains it's 3Hd, at that moment it starts to damage 1d6 cold damage/2Hd.
The saves For this Sla are 10+1/2Hd+cha modfier, The Skiurid HD count as its caster level.

Being tiny: It gains a bonus equal to its HD on Hide, Move Silently and Climb. A skiurid can always take 10 in climb checks, even if rushed or threatened. It also get +4 to dexterity and -2 to Strength and Constitution.

Weapon finesse The Skiurid gains Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat at level 1.

HD belongs inside spoiler.
Haven't looked at the other Tiny races, but is it normal to change the size bonus to a racial bonus, or does it's racial bonus to hide stack with that? Might be a bit much.
Might want to clean up the Cold damage, right now it reads as if the skiuirid takes the cold damage.
Dimension Door at HD per day at level one is really potent, but I guess the blink dog gets the same thing as a move action at level two, so I guess it balances with what we've got.
Penalty to Con, and D4 hitdice? Do the other tinys take the Con hit? Because if they do, I vote against it entirely. Penalty to Con and D4 hit die. Sure, it could take levels of Barbarian, but still seems a bit ridiculous.

Black Dragon

Drenched in Acid: At 17th level, If the Black Dragon has taken damage in the last hour, it's acidic blood oozes out, between it's cales as a protective measure. Anyone making a touch attack takes HD/2 Acid damage (reflex damage to half).

Last hour?
Anyone making a touch attack? I recommend at least adding natural or unarmed attack, an potentially any melee attack.

Might limit breath weapon to uses per day per HD, or 2 uses per HD. Sorcerer with Barbarain Hit-die, and a Rechargeable (and avoidable recharge duration with a feat or two) Spam Blaster is a bit... much.

Otherwise I haven't looked over the other-dragons but it looks pretty standard to me, with a few fun abilities. I wouldn't complain if my DM made me play one.

Other I think I will tackle the Githyanki and Githzerai next. Unless anyone objects.

[TheGeckoKing]

Righty-o, i'll ajust Drenched in Acid to 3 rounds, and not an hour.
But I dunno about the breath weapon. I'll ajust it to have a more restrictive cooldown, but I think all the dragon class' breath attacks are like that. I'll add that the cooldown can't be reduced by feats, but I don't want to gimp the dragon's signiture feature any more than that.
EDIT : Made the dragon wait d4 rounds minimum, and boosted Drenched in Acid to have more potential targets.

[Hyudra]

Skiurid

• Can it speak? My initial assumption would be no, and you don't name languages.
• Stat bonuses should be an individual ability and should appear on the table.
• The non-stat stuff in 'Tiny Size' belongs under Skiurid Body.
• HD bonuses to skills is absolutely unnecessary and massive. You're talking about a +20 at 20th level to 3 skills.
• Really, really should avoid ability score penalties.
• It doesn't scale well. It's abilities scale, yes, but they don't offer versatility or ratcheting increase in power that's going to make up for the lack of fine manipulation.

Balance wise, I don't agree with the huge dex bonus. Figure you're 1st level. You take 18 dex, put rest in Con, Int and Wis (saves & skill points). You buy Padded Leather. Now you've got a PC with AC 10 +4 (Starting dex) +1 (Padded Leather) +2 (Tiny) +2 (Class dex bonus). AC 19. That's if they can find you with your +19 hide.

And there's one final issue I have. There's a whole lot of tiny creatures out there, many with low CR. There's this ongoing trend, though, where a whole lot of the tiny creatures in the various books have very similar playstyles. 2-3 natural attacks, higher dex, suited to roguish builds, focused on hiding (using their massive natural bonus). We (as a homebrew conclave) need to emphasize the things that make each individual tiny creature different, so we don't design ourselves into a corner in the long run.

Black Dragon

Just to get it out of the way - I never particularly agreed with the design of dragons. A little too good at everything, a little too versatile, and they set a screwy precedent for other classes to try to match up to. With that in mind, I won't be reviewing this dragon for overall balance, just for individual abilities/issues that crop up.

• Ability score bonuses don't appear to have any particular pattern to them. Very wonky and unintuitive.
• The abilities that make Skullface stand out from the rest of the dragons are a little too loaded towards the upper levels of the class. It'd be nice if there were more flavorful abilities at earlier levels.
• I see no problem with Black Dragons finding a way to fire off their breath weapon earlier than the 1d4 round standard. The minimum doesn't feel necessary.
• The Black Dragon suffers from the same issue the core ranger does. It's very situational. Abilities that work in water, but how many dungeons or battlegrounds feature such? (Admittedly, a lot of mine do, but I'm a sadist DM) When there's no water, half of the abilities unique to the Black Dragon are kind of useless.
• No save -3 penalty to attack feels kinda lame, and doesn't make playing the dragon particularly interesting, given it's so passive.
• Don't love the abilities Acidic Nightmare or Kaizer of the Murky Depths. The former because it feels kind of unwieldy and shows up too late to be a good answer to creatures weak to acid, the latter because Dragons are all about ego, and having something to do one's dirty work is more of a Demon/Devil thing.

[Gorgondantess]

Dream Larva:

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No, fluff is not necessary. No other class has it.
Anyways...
Right away, the natural armor is a problem: either explicitly state it cannot wear armor and go ahead and give the big bonus, or don't say anything and remove the big bonus; thus, we assume it wears armor as an exotic creature.
Soporific Touch: can it be used in a full attack action? If so, does it apply to one attack, or all? All attacks would be broken.
Also, you do realize that the range would be useless until 12th level, where finally it would outpace melee attack range, but still then only by a measly 5 feet? Long ranges are not OP. Just stating a flat 30' would work, as would 10' per HD. Or even 20.
Jaws: Any particular reason why you're not giving it a damage progression as I suggested? Also, you're not taking growth into account, so things just become very confusing. Do we consider the damage as a medium creature, and adjust accordingly? Do we just forget that on every other creature on the thread growth increases natural attack damage?
SR is still off. 11+HD.
What's the duration on Bad Dream? Does it apply to everyone? Honestly, I'd just make it a gaze attack (free action) and the standard format for those is that whoever saves against it is immune for 24 hours. Then give a duration for the shaken- probably just 10 minutes or something.
Helps for not shakening your party every morning.
Craft: Dreamweaving looks... okay. I'd put a cap on the bonus/penalty. Maybe +5? And maybe a scaling DC, so the bonus to the DC is an additional +6 for the second, and an additional +7 for the third, and so on and so forth. Also, if the dreamweaver decides to sleep, could it visit its own dreams?
Also, make it a flat DC will save, and an additional +5 DC on the check to give a +1 bonus to the DC. As is, nobody would really try to do much more than a -1 penalty for their enemies just because
Claws and Pincers: There isn't really a 26th level. And again, you forgot growth.
Up above: don't need to state that CL=HD. It's in the first post.
Flashing Colors: Still no 25th level.
Glimpse of Terror: Any particular reason you didn't take my suggestion?
Fast as thought should come a lot earlier.

Now, for the PrC:
Dream Spy is a little vague. You can learn one thing they like or fear?
Strength of the Wise is a little... broken. Anyone can be under this effect? So, say, mindless creatures get "no save, just die"? And any melee monster gets no save, just suck.

The Dreamer King: NO NON-OGL MATERIAL. Also, just no mindrape, even if it were OGL. Ew.

Consciousness Bury: Em... no. I don't care that many epic characters can go toe-to-toe with a god, but that's just wrong.

Stained Glass Golem: Remember that the bonus to HP can vary: I find it odd that this one gets a similar bonus to the iron golem. Check out the force golem's HP bonus.
The SLA progression is odd; just let it have the 0 level SLAs, then make daylight/blindness a separate ability, 4th or 5th level.
Increase the SR to 13+HD.
Oh, and on the natural armor, the golem's size doesn't increase...
Anyways, I'm actually a little worried that this'll outshine the Force Golem. I meant for you to take a few of my suggestions, not all of them.

Chumplump: Have you even looked at all the other dragons? The ones who were meant as balancing points? They have the same rechargeable breath mechanic. If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with the dozen-odd dragons that came before it.

Anyways. Black dragon.
Reduce the bonuses a little bit: you should aim for around 20-22 total. As a start, just reduce the charisma by 2 points.
All of Hyudra's suggestions are good.
Caustic Arcana: Copypaste error.
It should not be growing faster than the Red Dragon. Period. Cap it at huge.

Okay maybe I'm misinterpreting your intention, it is hard with just text and no voice, but this second part seems a bit on the unnecessarily hostile side to me. Obviously I realize that there are other games that these classes are meant for; all I was saying was that it didn't bother me and then gave my personal reasons. I made no mention of whether it would bother you, or anybody else. At any rate, I get your point and while I think you could have phrased it in a less antagonistic way I'll keep a lookout and mention anything else I notice. If I am just being too sensitive and did misconstrue your "tone," I apologize.

A little hostile, yes. I am annoyed. When you see stuff like that, I want to hear it: silence is my worst enemy here. You are doing me a disservice if you don't tell me these things. I bet there are many, many things that people have seen that are broken and haven't bothered to say anything for whatever reason, and that does nothing for me here.

Tygre: That's exactly what I'm talking about. What, exactly, was the problem with the Gloom? I'm more worried if it's broken pre-epic than epic (everything breaks at epic anyways) but that still doesn't mean we should just ignore it.

TMK: I'm working on a pseudonatural.

Skiurid... no. Just no. The massive dexterity bonus, the constitution penalty... the fact that it can easily be a melee monster at 1st level... No.
Looking at it, it's an awakened cat with better SLAs. Dimension door at 1st level=broken. Period. Any sort of dimension door before 3rd level is also broken. Honestly, I don't know what to do with it to make it okay.
Also: Darkness with cold damage and dimension door on a CR 1/2 creature? Please tell me that this is from MMII.
Again, I agree with Hyudra.

[Cardea]

Malebranche

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{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort|Will|Refl|Feature
1|+1|+2|+0|+2|Body for War, +1 Str
2|+2|+3|+0|+3|Cruel Intent, Natural Armor Bonus, +1 Str
3|+3|+3|+1|+3|Hidden Cunning, +1 Str, +1 Con
4|+4|+4|+1|+4|Improved Grab, +1 Str, +1 Con
5|+5|+4|+1|+4|Spell Resistance, +1 Str
6|+6/1|+5|+2|+5|Improved Body for War, +1 Str, +1 Con
7|+7/2|+5|+2|+5|Resistance, +1 Str, +1 Con
8|+8/3|+6|+2|+6|Growth, +1 Str, +1 Con
9|+9/4|+6|+3|+6|Malicious Intent, +1 Str
10|+10/5|+7|+3|+7|Diabolic Vision, +1 Str, +1 Con
11|+11/6/1|+7|+3|+7|Improved Resistance, +1 Str, +1 Con
12|+12/7/2|+8|+4|+8|Greater Body for War, +1 Str, +1 Con
13|+13/8/3|+8|+4|+8|Devilish Presence, +1 Str, +1 Con
14|+14/9/4|+9|+4|+9|Perfect Body for War, Sinister Intent, Growth, +1 Str, +1 Con[/table]

Hit Die: d8
Class Skills: Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Intimidate, Knowledge (The Planes), Listen, Sense Motive, Search, Spot, Use Magic Device
Skill Points: 6+Int Mod (Or 4 x 6+Int Mod at first level)

Proficiencies: You are proficient with Simple and Martial Weapons, and with Light Armor.

Body for War: Congratulations! You are a Malebranche! Remove all racial modifiers and abilities. You are Medium Sized. You gain a Gore Attack that deals 1d8+Strength Modifier damage. You also gain Power Attack as a Bonus Feat. You have a base land speed of 30 ft. You are an Outsider (Baatezu, Evil, Extraplanar, Lawful).

Ability Enhancements: You gain:
+1 Strength: Every Level
+1 Constitution: At every level except at 1st, 2nd, 5th and 9th

Cruel Intent: You care not for paltry tricks, and everyone you face knows it. At 2nd Level, your Melee attacks (Both Natural and Manufactured) have a 25% to ignore Concealment, Cover and Damage Reduction from any source.

Natural Armor Bonus: Your skin becomes more resilient the more and more you grow, rivaling that of Magical Armor. At 2nd level, you gain a Natural Armor Bonus equal to your Constitution Modifier.

Hidden Cunning: Others may take you as nothing but an oaf. Even more will take you as a tool. But you know better. And you make sure anyone who tries to take control of you knows better. At 3rd Level, you gain a +2 Bonus to Will Saves against Mind-Affecting Spells and Spell-Like Abilities. At every odd level afterwards, this bonus increases by 1.

Improved Grab: As the Ability.

Spell Resistance: Your time fighting has made you adapt to the mysteries of the Arcane and Divine. You gain SR equivalent to 11+HD.

Improved Body for War: Your time in hell has made you into a more formidable foe. You grow to Large Size. Your Gore Attack increases to deal 2d6+StrMod damage. You gain two Claws, each dealing 1d8+StrMod damage. Your ability scores do not change due to your increased size, but you do gain the normal bonuses and penalties of being Large sized. You grow Wings with a flight speed of 70 ft. (Average). Additionally, you gain the Rend

Resistance: Being exposed to so many different forms of combat has trained your body to resist some of the crueler methods of death. Upon reaching 7th level, you gain Fire Resistance equal to your HD. Additionally, you gain a bonus to your saves equal to your Constitution Modifier against Poisons.

Growth: At 8th Level you grow to Large Size. Your ability scores do not change due to your increased size, but you do gain the normal bonuses and penalties of being Large sized. At 14th Level you grow to Huge Size. You gain all benefits of an increase in size, but your ability scores do not change because of it.

Malicious Intent: You grow tired of having others attempt to dodge your blows or resist them. At 9th Level, your Melee attacks (Both Natural and Manufactured) have a 50% to ignore Concealment, Cover and Damage Reduction from any source.

Diabolic Vision: The illusions of the world hold no merit over you! Starting at 10th level, you gain a +2 to any Save to any spell of the Illusion School. This bonus increases by 1 for every 3 HD you have. Additionally, if you have struck the creature at least once, you are treated as having True Seeing on that Creature for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution Modifier.

Improved Resistance: Time in battle has exposed you to more and more elements of warfare. You lose your Fire Resistance and your Bonus against Poisons, but gain Immunity to Fire and Poison. Additionally, you gain Acid and Cold Resistance equal to your HD.

Greater Body for War: Your name is whispered by lower Devils, and your body has grown and changed... along with your mind. At 12th Level You gain Improved Initiative as a Bonus Feat. You gain DR [x]/Magic equal to 1/2 HD. Additionally, your base land speed increases to 40 ft. your flight speed increases to 100 ft. (Average).

Devilish Presence: At 13th Level you gain a Fear Aura (Will Save DC: 15+Con Mod) that spreads out 20 ft. from you. On a failed save, creatures are panicked for 10 rounds. On a successful save, a creature cannot be affected by the your Aura for the next 24 Hours. Other Baatezu are not affected by this. Allies are not affected by this Aura.

Sinister Intent: Each blow you deal hits hard, taking most creatures aback at how powerful each one is. At 14th Level, your Melee attacks (Both Natural and Manufactured) have a 75% to ignore Concealment, Cover and Damage Reduction from any source.

Perfect Body for War: You're a fearsome sight to behold. Countless demons speak of your kind, and those who meet you or see you, are reassured of the intimidating tales. You gain Telepathy (100 ft.), and Regeneration equal to 1/2 your HD. Your regeneration is bypassed only by Fire (If your immunity is somehow blocked or removed) and Acid. Your flight speed increases to 120 ft. (Average).

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Probably made some sort of mistake here, but I'll find out when people pick this apart.
Posted this in the original thread, but didn't get included here. Re-posting.

[Volthawk]

Please tell me that this is from MMII.

MMIV, actually.

[Hyudra]

Malebranche

• Full BAB and +1 strength at every level is a little extreme.
• Sorta feel the same way about armor + natural armor + tons of con bonuses.
• Again, adding to the whole package, it's a lot of skill points for a non-skill monkey.
• I think it would make more sense if Hidden Cunning was tied to an attribute, rather than a flat bonus that scaled up with HD.
• Improved Grab - Is usually attached to a particular attack type. Is it tied to Gore, or any attack? Needs more details.
• I'm not up to looking up the monster (especially since the source isn't named), but as I understand it, devils have a set progression for their infernal abilities (like DR, SR, resistances). Someone else can clarify, or you can double check against other devils.
• Level 6 is too full of stuff. Size increase, increased attack damage, claw attacks, flight and (an undescribed) rend. Spread it out?
• Growth has you grow to large size, which level 6 already does?
• DR shows up really late (see the above point about DR/SR/Resistances) and by the time it does show up, many enemies will have magic damage on their attacks anyways.
• DC for fear aura should be 10 + 1/2 HD + (stat). Not sure I like how it lets you win many encounters without taking an action.

Overall, I like it. The ability to ignore defenses is kind of fitting, and it remains a consummate melee monster. It just needs to fit the devil template a little better and have the above stuff addressed.

[TheGeckoKing]

Right, I shall do the tweaking to the Black Dragon right away! Huge size, no minimum recharge, reduce boni to 21ish, fix the copy pasta, and a special ability I have in mind.......

[Cogidubnus]

Didn't realise you meant take a few of them. Scrapped the SLAs, reduced the HP bonuses, so now it's basically just one really sharp piece of glass.

Also, it should out-SHINE the force golem. Just not necessarily out-fight

[monkman]

It seems that my Skiurid is screwed up, should i scrap him and start something else??
also Hydra, MALEBRANCHE comes from fiendish code II

[Markus Darkmind]

Has anyone requested the Corrupted Creature from the Book of Vile Darkness? I bet that would be interesting to see...

A revised version of it can be found in Expedition to the Demonweb Pits.

[TheGeckoKing]

Right, I've done my changes. Black Dragon Mk2 is up! If it's still not up to snuff (minor changes I don't mind doing), feel free to hit it with a stick (edit it) at your leasure, because I don't think I can go any further with it.

[Hyudra]

Gravetouched Ghoul
Prestige/Template Monster Class
Libris Mortis

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Prerequisites:
To become a Gravetouched Ghoul, a player must fulfill the following requirements:

• 2 or more HD.
• Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid.
• Must have done one of the following:
  
  • Lived a life of consummate evil and decadent gluttony. In general, this requires a character of any evil alignment who has spent at least a year indulging in rare and/or high quality food, drink and typically several illicit substances. Among these foods, must have at one point eaten the flesh of a sentient creature.
  • Grown fat on the flesh of other sentient humanoids, while still mortal. The character's diet should consist entirely of such creatures. Creatures who do not feel pain or emotion generally do not count towards this prequisite.
  • Earned the favor of a major power (god, demon/devil lord, etc) with power over undeath/undead. This often involves a quest or task of some sort.
  • Successfully rebuked a major entity or force rooted in the cycle of life and death. This typically involves severing the god or goddess from a source of their power. This might include razing a temple of Wee Jas, destroying a major artifact of Vaulkana, delivering the death blow to a major figure of their church, etc. The premise is that sufficient energies are released, coupled with the interference of the natural cycle, to sufficiently warp the character's place in the pattern.
  • Die of Ghoul Fever in an unhallowed (as the spell) location. This only works about 25% of the time, but should be noted.
• Finally, the character must die with their body more or less intact.

Only after the character has the required experience to gain a level and dies will the DM adjudicate whether the player has met the prerequisites. Should the transformation be deemed successful, the player rises one night afterwards.

HD: D12
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will |Special
1st|+0|+0|+2|+0| Gravetouched Body, Rigor Premortis, Grisly Diet, +1 Str, +1 Cha
2nd|+1|+0|+3|+0| Ghoul Fever, Macabre Diet, +1 Str, +1 Dex[/table]
Skill Points 4+Int per level
Class Skill Skills: None.

Proficiencies: Gravetouched Ghouls are proficient with their claws and natural armor.

Gravetouched Body: Unlike other monster classes, the creature's original racial traits are retained. The Gravetouched Ghoul becomes Undead, as follows:

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• All prior, present & future HD become D12s
• The Gravetouched Ghoul loses its Constitution score.
• Darkvision out to 60'
• Gains immunity to mind affecting spells (sleep, charm, etc.)
• Gains immunity to poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, disease, ability drain and energy drain. Its physical ability scores cannot be damaged, and it cannot become fatigued or exhausted.
• Does not heal hp damage naturally, but can heal damage to its mental ability scores.
• Becomes immune to effects requiring a fortitude save, unless those effects would work on inanimate objects.
• Uses Charisma in place of Con for Constitution checks.
• Not at risk of massive damage, but when reduced to 0 health, is immediately destroyed.
• Cannot be resurrected by anything short of a Miracle or Wish.
• No need to breathe or sleep. No dependence on standard food (for nonstandard diet, see below).

In addition, the Gravetouched Ghoul has two claw attacks, delivering 1d4+Str damage each (if medium; change as appropriate to a 1d4 weapon for creature size) or using pre-existing claw attacks, if stronger. The effects of claw attacks are detailed below, under Rigor Premortis and Ghoul Fever. The Ghoul has sharp teeth, but they do not allow for proper bite attacks until 2nd level.

Finally, the Gravetouched Ghoul gains a choice of natural armor equal to its Strength modifier, or having any pre-existing natural armor change to use Str and gaining a flat +2 bonus to it.

Ability Score Increases: The Gravetouched Ghoul gains +1 Str, +1 Cha at first level. At second level it gains +1 Str, +1 Dex, totaling at +2 Str, +1 Dex and +1 Cha over 2 levels.

Rigor Premortis: At first level and onwards, any living creature struck by a Gravetouched Ghoul's claws or bite (see below) must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 HD + Cha) or be paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. The save DC increases by 1 for every save vs. paralysis the victim has had to make in the last hour. Elves are immune to paralysis.

Grisly Diet: Starting at first level, a Gravetouched Ghoul may feed on any fallen (helpless, dead) sentient creature. Doing so is a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity and restores 1d6 health to the ghoul, with an additional +1 health restored for every CR the creature has. The meat of any persons dead for 24 or more hours offers too little sustenance to matter. A given food source can provide one round of feeding for every CR the creature has, doubled for every size category larger the victim is than the ghoul, and halved for every size category smaller.

Ghoul Fever: A 2nd level Gravetouched Ghoul can transmit Ghoul Fever through its bite. The DC to save against the disease is 10 + 1/2 HD + Cha). The disease normally (see below) incubates for one day, and deals both 1d3 Con damage and 1d3 Dex damage. A humanoid (or monstrous humanoid) victim who dies of Ghoul Fever rises as a Ghoul. Such victims are not expressly under the control of their creator, but their feral natures drive them to gather in packs and tend to overwhelm any resentment, rendering their attitudes indifferent or friendly towards fellow ghouls.

The disease of a Gravetouched Ghoul is above and beyond that of a normal ghoul, however, and for every 6HD it has, the Gravetouched Ghoul may select one of the following ways to augment the disease:

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• Pathogen: Each time the victim fails a save against the disease (including the initial save to find if the disease was contracted), the DC is increased by +2.
• Rapid Onset: The Disease now has an incubation period of 1d3 rounds. This may be taken a second time, reducing the incubation period to 1d3-2 rounds.
• Scourge: The victim must save against the disease twice as often (ie. from every 24 hours to every 12 hours). This option may be taken multiple times, halving the amount of time the victim must save each time it is taken. (from 24 to 12, 12 to 6, 6 to 3, and so on).
• Fever: Once the disease enters the victim's system, the victim displays a rapidly progressing fever. From the point the victim fails the saving throw up until the time the disease is removed, the victim is Fatigued. Once the disease is incubated, the victim must make a fortitude save on any given hour or be Exhausted for that hour, instead. (DC is 10 + ½ Ghoul's HD + Ghoul's Cha bonus)
• Systemic Shock: When an opponent fails their save against disease, they are immediately sickened. Further, the victim must make another fortitude save or be nauseated for 1d4 rounds, the DC for both saves is 10 + ½ Ghoul's HD + the Ghoul's Cha bonus.
  Once the disease has incubated, the victim must save or be nauseated on any given hour.
• Miasma: After the Ghoul Fever has finished incubating, a contagious vapor begins leaking out of their nose and mouth to taint the air around them. The disease effectively becomes inhalation and contact based, transmitted with the victim themselves as the origin point. Any infections transmitted in this way have the traits of the original disease, but with only a 50% chance the new victim will also show signs of the miasma.
  1d3 rounds after a victim afflicted with Miasma dies, the miasma begins consuming their body, filling all adjacent squares with the inhaled version of the disease.
• Blight: The negative energies in the Ghoul Fever becomes potent enough to affect targets that are normally immune, as the disease consumes, occludes and taints even inanimate matter and energies. The Disease can now affect any non-ghoul, including creatures that are typically immune or that lack constitution scores. The effects of the poison are halved when affecting such opponents, rounding down. Rather than deal Con damage to creatures with no Con score, the Ghoul Fever deals Cha damage instead. Creatures slain under the rules of Blight do not rise as Ghouls. Inanimate objects held by the ghoul will discolor and show signs of decay (rust, cracks, flaking stone), but objects that lack creature statistics aren't affected in a meaningful way.

Macabre Diet: At second level, the Gravetouched Ghoul's teeth become sharp and prominent enough to deliver bite attacks. The bite deals 1d6+1.5x the Gravetouched Ghoul's Str bonus in damage. Where the bite is the lesser Ghoul's primary method of attack, the Gravetouched Ghoul can opt to have either its claws or its bite be its primary weapon at any given point in time (but not, say, switching in the middle of a full attack routine), a benefit of retaining the memories and skills of its mortal life.

The Gravetouched Ghoul can now Gorge itself - not so much to fill any physical need, but to saturate itself with the negative energies that suffuses their bodies. To Gorge, a ghoul must already be at full health, and must spend a turn (6 rounds) feasting on the meat of the sentient creatures that are either still alive or who died no less than 24 hours ago.

The benefit of gorging is a +1 to two different ability scores of the Gravetouched Ghoul's choice. A Gravetouched Ghoul can gorge as many times as it likes, but the bonuses stop accumulating after the Ghoul has gorged (1/3 HD) times. (ie. A 7th level Gravetouched Ghoul gorges 3 times, gaining +2 Str and +2 Cha. The third gorging is stored but doesn't offer any particular benefit, as the Ghoul doesn't have the required HD).

Should the Gravetouched Ghoul wish, it may expend Gorgings to grant itself a +4 bonus per Gorging spent to resist being turned. Gorgings (even if unused) expire after 24 hours.

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This was a little tricky, because I wanted to stick with the ghoulish flavor but keep it distinct from Craftycultist's Ghoul.

The Gravetouched Ghoul isn't as simple a creature (it's not as easy to keep fed, for one), but offers some subtle benefits, ranging from the ability to emphasize claw attacks as primary weapons to the enhanced paralysis (DC increasing) and disease.

The hunger penalties are mostly HP loss, which can be worked around, but the will save & general issues that can crop up when the ghoul is crazed by hunger keep that from being too much of an issue. I feel fairly confident that, between the benefits of gorging and the accumulating penalties on the will save, a Gravetouched Ghoul is encouraged to act as a ghoul should, without feeling trapped by the penalties.

Changelog

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Noted flavor for Blight (under advanced disease), to detail what happens when the ghoul handles inanimate objects (and to help players steer away from thinking they can turn cities into miasma bombs).

Clarified some more stuff in the advanced disease stuff (reference to 'creature's' HD & Con, changed to refer to ghoul & Cha.

Oct 18th:
Bite damage reduced.
Reducing the amount of dice rolling & bookkeeping:

• Disease is now only spread by bite (no longer bite + claw), paralysis by claws.
• No more rolling vs. hunger for every X hours spent in sunlight. Just once, at sunrise.

Oct 21st:

• BAB reduced, +1 Str to offset.
• No more losing health or saving vs. hunger at sunrise/during the day.
• Gorging no longer, as a consequence, has a value for being stockpiled to counter hunger/daylight. Instead, excess gorgings can be spent to counter turn attempts.

Was added to list. Changed stats (from +2 Str at 1st, +1 Cha at 2nd, to current).

[flabort]

At 12 HD or more, a second level gravetouched ghoul can have both Miasma and Blight, which means objects around a victim who has incubated start to be destroyed. Man, unleash this virus upon a crowded city, and , the whole city will collapse within a week, at most. I doubt there will be any survivors.

Also, whats the limit on excess gourgings it can accumulate?

[Magicyop]

Wow, Gravetouched Ghoul is awesome. I want to play one of those one day.

Working on making changes to Dream Larva.

[Starsign]

Thank you so much Hyudra for making the class. I'll be sure to use that from now on (when it's approved of course) whenever I play Aclop (my avatar, Qwernt did a fantastic job on him!)

[Magicyop]

Changes have been made to Dream Larva! Changed Mindrape to simply 'personality editing'. Mostly the same in game effect, but not relying on a non-OGL spell, and not conjuring up unpleasant mental images. For Strength of the Wise, foes may now make a fortitude or will save, and if successful, they may choose which set of ability scores they use against the Dream Larva. So the weak old wise man could possibly give the Dream Larva a heavy thwacking.

Consciousness Bury now allows a save to push out the larva, and if the save is successful, causes a fairly large amount of damage to the Larva.

Other assorted changes made, also. Look alright now? I think I did everything you said to do...

Anyone other than Gorgon feel free to give comments on the Dream Larva too, it's way back on page 8.

[Hyudra]

At 12 HD or more, a second level gravetouched ghoul can have both Miasma and Blight, which means objects around a victim who has incubated start to be destroyed. Man, unleash this virus upon a crowded city, and , the whole city will collapse within a week, at most. I doubt there will be any survivors.

Also, whats the limit on excess gourgings it can accumulate?

Added flavor text (and minor mechanic detail) to Blight to steer people away from thinking they can turn cities into miasma bombs. Well, they can, but they'll hardly level cities by using it in conjuction with blight: you might get to pandemic levels, where the number of ghouls builds up to a sufficient point. It's not the best ability for combat, so I'm ok with leaving the flavor there.

Theoretically no limit on gorging, so long as you can access ~6CR of warm body for each gorging and keep your health topped off. The cap on bonuses and time limit keeps it from accumulating to a problematic point (either people with huge bonuses or people who gorge on enough bodies they can ignore eating for a year.)

[Mystic Muse]

EDIT: I've done what I can, but this class is stumping me and I need to get to bed soon. Anybody else (Besides Gorgon. You get to your own stuff first.) want to try finishing it?

Spoiler

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HD:d8
{table]Level|Bab|Fort|Ref|Will|Feature
1|+ 0|+ 0|+0 | +2 | Planar body, Tempest lash, +1 Int
2|+1 |+ 0|+0 | +3 | Aligned Strike, SLAs
3|+ 2|+ 1|+ 1| +3 | fast healing, +1 strength,
4|+ 3|+ 1|+1 | +4 | Infinite knowledge, SLAs +1 intelligence
5|+ 3|+ 1|+ 1| +4 | fly speed,
6|+ 4|+ 2|+2 | +5 |Growth, +1 strength, SLAs
7|+ 5|+ 2|+2 | + 5| improved infinite knowledge, +1 intelligence
8|+ 6|+ 2|+2 | +6 | Storm of visions,
9|+ 6|+ 3|+ 3| +6 | Cloud of foresight+1 Strength
10|+7 |+ 3|+3 | +7 | greater infinite knowledge, improved tempest lash, +1 intelligence
11|+ 8| + 3|+ 3| +7 | Blindsight, SLAs,
12|+ 9|+ 4|+4 | +8 | SLAS, +1 Strength
13|+ 9|+ 4|+4 | +8 | Perfect Infinite Knowledge, +1 intelligence
14|+ 10|+ 4|+4 | +9 | Home Plane, Plane shift
15|+ 11|+5 |+ 5| +9 | Rejuvenation, +1 Strength, +1 intelligence
[/table]
Skills: 8+ int mod per level. Class skills: All skills are class skills

Proficiencies: Illurien isn't proficient with any weapons except her tempest lash and isn't proficient with any armor.


Features:
Outsider body: Illurien loses all other racial traits and gains outsider traits, base (Basically darkvision 60 feet), Base move speed of 40 and In addition she gains the tempest lash SU ability and pointed knowledge.

Tempest lash: Illurien can use tempest lash as a standard action. The damage is equal to 1d8+strength modifier and she gets iterative attacks with the ability based on her BAB. At 10th level The lash deals 1d4 intelligence damage on a hit and she gains 5 temporary hit points for each point of intelligence she drains. These temporary hit points can not exceed her total hit points and go away at the end of the encounter.

If Illurien multiclasses for an arcane class she can count her levels in the Illurien class as levels of that class for purposes of CL and for the purposes of learning new spells and getting new spell slots. So for example, if Illurien takes 3 levels of her class and takes 1 level of sorcerer could choose to have CL 4, get 3 2nd level spell slots, 1 1st level spell slot, 1 2nd level spell known and 1 0th level spell known. She wouldn't get the spells known and spell slots of a sorcerer 3 however. She would get the familiar ability, but Illurien levels wouldn't count for it.

+1 intelligence. Illurien gains a +1 bonus to her intelligence score at levels 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 and 15 for a total of +6 to her intelligence score at 13th level.

Aligned strike: At 2nd level, any weapon Illurien wields is treated as evil for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

SLAs: At 2nd level Illurien gains the spells detect magic and read magic as SLAs 1/day per HD. At 4th level she gains identify as an SLA and she can use it 1/day per 2 HD, at 6th level she gains arcane sight and tongues as SLAs 1/day per 3HD as an At 10th level she gains the spell contanct other plane as an SLA 1/ day per 4 HD and At 12th level she gains legend lore and Analyze Dweomer as SLAs 1/day per 5 HD

Fast healing: At 3rd level Illurien gains fast healing equal to a third of her total hit dice.

Infinite Knowledge: Illurien can now use all that knowledge she stole and all the brains she ate to good use. A number of times per day equal to her intelligence modifier (minimum of 1), she may expend a move action to make a knowledge check against whatever she may be facing: local for monstrous humanoids, arcane for magical beasts and dragons, Architecture/Engineering for constructs, dungeoneering for aberrations & oozes, the planes for outsiders & elementals, nature for animals & fey, nobility & royalty for humanoids, and geography for giants. The DC of this knowledge check is 15. If she succeeds, all allies within 30 feet gain a +1 bonus to attacks against the creature (or creatures, if there are multiple creatures of the same race). This bonus increases by an additional 1 for every 10 points Illurien succeeds by.
Starting at 7th level, Illurien may instead grant a +1 bonus to saves against the creature's abilities, plus an additional one for every 10 points Illurien succeeds by.
Starting at 10th level, Illurien may instead grant +1d6 damage to attacks against the creature, plus an additional 1d6 for every 10 points Illurien succeeds by.
Starting at 13th level, Illurien may instead grant a +1 bonus to AC against the creature's attacks, plus an additional one for every 10 points she succeeds by.
Starting at 16th level, Illurien may instead grant a +1 bonus to DCS of any ability used against the creature, plus an additional 1 for every 10 points she succeeds by.

Flight: at 5th level Illurien gains a fly speed of 40 feet and good maneuverability. The flight increases to 60 at 10th level, 80 at 15th and 100 and 20th

Improved Planar Resistance: At 6th level Illurien gains acid resistance equal to her hit dice and damage reduction good equal to half her hit dice

Growth: at 6th level Illurien grows to large size.

Storm of visions SU: (At 8th level) The watery droplets that surround Illurien are the collected fragments of the knowledge she has accumulated. At the end of Each of Illurien's turns each enemy within 30 feet of her must succeed on a will save equal to 10+Half HD+ Charisma modifier. A successful save negates the effect but each creature in the area must make a new saving throw at the end of each of Illurien's turns. This is a mind affecting ability.


Cloud of Foresight SU: At 8th level, drawing on her boundless lore,Illurien uses her opponent's tendencies and desires against them. This causes her opponents to have a 20% miss chance against her.


Knowledge devotion: At 9th level Illurien gains Knowledge devotion as a bonus feat regardless of whether or not she meets the prerequisites.

Plane shift: At 14th level, Illurien can now cast plane shift as the spell 1/day per 4 HD.

Home Plane: At 14th level, Illurien gains her own “Ivory tower”, known as the Aethenaum Nefarious. The Aethenaum Nefarious is a library filled to the brim with forgotten knowledge and dark secrets. This library is located in the Outlands.

Rejuvenation: When Illurien would “die” she instead regenerates within the Aethenaum Nefarious in 2 days. However, she loses one level each time this happens.

Repost. Anybody in the mood to do this?

[Hyudra]

Not really familiar with Illuriens. Picture, source &/or a quick explanation as to what they are & what they do?

[Tacitus]

MM5. NE Large Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar). Master of knowledge and keeper of secrets. Can attack with rain droplets around it that are actually a physical form of distilled thought. Can't actually speak, but has telepathy and understands all languages and has the delightful fluff of knowing almost everything about a person just by conversing with them telepathically. No save or check, it just happens.

[Hyudra]

Cloud Giant
Monster Class
SRD, Monster Manual I

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HD: D8
{TABLE]Level | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Feature
1| +0| +2| +0| +0| Cloud Giant body, Powerful Build, Str+1, Con+1
2| +1| +3| +0| +0| Seize, Stash, Str+1, Con+1
3| +2| +3| +1| +1| Fee Fi Fo Fum, Str+1, Con+1
4| +3| +4| +1| +1| Growth, Throw Stone, Catch, Str+1, Con+1
5| +3| +4| +1| +1| Trample, Haughty, Str+1, Con+1
6| +4| +5| +2| +2| Leap, Oversize Weapon, Str+1, Con+1
7| +5| +5| +2| +2| Grind His Bones..., Str+1, Con+1
8| +6| +6| +2| +2| Stand Tall, Str+1, Con+1
9| +6| +6| +3| +3| Sky Kith, Str+1, Con+1
10| +7| +7| +3| +3| Great Clap, Str+1, Con+1
11| +8| +7| +3| +3| Cloud Palace, Str+1, Con+1
[/TABLE]
Skills: 6+int modifier per level, quadruple at first level. Class skills are Climb, Craft (Any one), Diplomacy, Intimidate, Jump, Listen, Perform and Spot.

Proficiencies: All simple and martial weapons and his own natural weapons, plus light and medium armor.

Features:
Cloud Giant body: The Cloud Giant loses all other racial bonuses, and gains giant traits (mainly low light vision), a base speed of 30 feet, two natural slam attacks doing 1d4+Str each and a +1 racial bonus on thrown rocks. Lastly, he gains natural armor equal to his Con bonus.

Ability score increase: a Cloud Giant gains +1 Str and +1 Con for each level in this class. By eleventh level, a Cloud Giant has +11 Str and +11 Con.

Powerful Build: At first level, a Cloud Giant gains Powerful Build. The physical stature of Giants lets them function in many ways as if they were one size category larger. Whenever the Giant is subject to a size modifier or special size modifier for an opposed check (such as during grapple checks, bull rush attempts, and trip attempts), the Giant is treated as one size larger if doing so is advantageous to him. A Giant is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature’s special attacks based on size (such as improved grab or swallow whole) can affect him. A Giant can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, his space and reach remain those of a creature of his actual size. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject’s size category.

Seize: At second level, the Cloud Giant may pick up opponents at least one size smaller than them. The giant must initiate a grapple as normal. If successful, the Cloud Giant may hoist their opponent from the ground, pulling them into the giant's square. Seized opponents suffer the normal consequences for grappling (including a -4 penalty to attack the giant and inability to move without a grapple check), while the Cloud Giant does not; The Cloud Giant threatens all appropriate squares, may move at half speed without making a grapple check, can attack the target or any foes in reach with a one handed weapon (or slam attack) without penalty, and is not treated as grappling by the target (and thus cannot be pinned). In essence, the Giant holds the opponent by one hand while going about his business.

Stash: At second level, the Cloud Giant may elect to stuff a grappled opponent at least one size category smaller than it into an appropriate container, such as a backpack or a large canvas sack. The object need not be on the Giant's person, and a barrel, crate or bottle in reach also serves the ability's purposes, provided it is large enough to house the creature. This is similar to Swallow Whole, and is activated with another grapple check as a standard action. If successful, the creature continues to be treated as grappled while the Giant is left alone. The victim can be left on the ground (in which case there's no effect on the Giant) or be caught in the container that hangs from the giant's belt or shoulders (in which case he counts against the giant's encumbrance, but the giant otherwise suffers no penalties (can move at full speed, use both hands).

To make a hole large enough to escape through, the creature must deliver at least 20 points of damage to the container for every size category they have. Attacks suffer a -4 penalty if the container is being jostled or moved, such as with containers held by the giant or if otherwise set in motion, as with a barrel rolled downhill.

Victims stuffed in containers with other debris suffer 1d2+Str damage whenever the Giant undertakes vigorous action (attacking, running, falling prone) and take 1d6+Str damage if the giant takes a full round action to shake, kick, pummel or bang on the container, or otherwise sets it in violent motion (a bag slung over a cliff). Victims can also be stuffed in airtight containers (which is sealed shut with a move action), such as a corked bottle, in which event they start to suffocate in 5 rounds. Damage die increase one step in size when the Giant grows to a larger size category.

Fee Fi Fo Fum: At third level, the Cloud Giant gains Scent, as per the monster ability, with a standard range of 30'. Further, the Cloud Giant treats the smell of blood as an overpowering odor (triple scent range to 90') and can pinpoint the location of any injured foe with a swift action rather than a move action. Injured opponents are those at less than maximum hitpoints; This may be stifled with other, overpowering smells, or a DC 15 heal check performed beforehand to bind wounds.

At 8HD, the Cloud Giant is also considered to have blindsight 30' for the purposes of combating injured opponents only.

Forecast: At third level, the Cloud Giant becomes attuned to the elemental air. The Cloud Giant may cast Levitate and Obscuring Mist as SLAs 1/day per HD, and may cast Fog Cloud as an SLA 1/day per 3HD.

A Cloud Giant who multiclasses into an arcane caster class can count Cloud Giant levels as levels of that class for purposes of CL/ML and for the purposes of learning new spells/powers and getting new spell slots/power points. However, the giant does not retroactively gain spell slots or new spells for caster levels it did not take, nor does it add Cloud Giant levels to its character level for the purpose of class features, such as familiars. Cloud Giants cast non-SLA spells with the air subtype at +2 caster level.

Growth: At fourth level, the Cloud Giant finishes growing to large size but loses Powerful Build. His AC, bonus to hit, slam damage, grapple and skills change accordingly, but doesn't get any ability score bonus or penalties. The giant's base movement speed increases by 10' (This movement boost occurs again at 12HD and 20HD, as the giant increases in size again).

The Giant continues to grow throughout his life:
At 8HD, the Cloud Giant reacquires Powerful Build, granting partial benefits of Huge size.
At 12HD, the Cloud Giant grows to Huge size and loses Powerful Build.
At 16HD, the Cloud Giant reacquires Powerful Build, granting partial benefits of Gargantuan size.
At 20HD, the Cloud Giant grows to Gargantuan size and loses Powerful Build.

Throw Stone: At fourth level, the Cloud Giant may begin throwing boulders or other large objects. A giant of at least Large size can hurl rocks weighing 40 to 50 pounds each (Small objects) up to 700 feet. A Huge giant can hurl rocks of 60 to 80 pounds (Medium objects). A Gargantuan giant can hurl rocks of 90 to 120 pounds (large objects). Inanimate objects of similar size and heft may be substituted, but you lose the racial bonus to attack rolls and have half the range.

Catch: At fourth level, a giant that would normally be hit by a rock can make a Reflex save to catch it as a free action. The DC is 15 for a Small rock, 20 for a Medium one, and 25 for a Large one. (If the projectile provides a magical bonus on attack rolls, the DC increases by that amount.) The giant must be ready for and aware of the attack in order to make a rock catching attempt.

Trample: At fifth level, as a full-round action, The Giant can move up to twice his speed and literally run over any opponents at least one size category smaller than itself. The Giant merely has to move over the opponents in its path; any creature whose space is completely covered by the Giant’s space is subject to the trample attack. If a target’s space is larger than 5 feet, it is only considered trampled if the Giant moves over all the squares it occupies.

A trample attack deals bludgeoning damage (the Giant’s slam damage + 1½ times his Str modifier).

Trampled opponents can attempt attacks of opportunity, but these take a -4 penalty. If they do not make attacks of opportunity, trampled opponents can attempt Reflex saves to take half damage.

The save DC against the Giant’s trample attack is 10 + ½ Giant's HD + Giant’s Str modifier. The Giant can only deal trampling damage to each target once per round, no matter how many times its movement takes it over a target creature.

Haughty: At fifth level, the Cloud Giant is used to looking down on others. He or she may stare down a caster, replacing his will save modifier with his intimidate modifier, where mind affecting effects are concerned.

Leap: At sixth level, the Cloud Giant may leap across the battlefield. Treat this as a charge action, but the giant must jump at least 10' as part of the charge, ending the charge as part of the leap. Upon landing, the giant sends up dust and vibrations that force all adjacent foes to make reflex saves (DC is 10 + ½ Giant's HD + Str) or stumble 5' back and be shaken until the end of their next turn. The giant (and any nearby companions) may deliver attacks of opportunity as a result of the stumbling opponents, in addition to delivering the charge attack.

Oversize Weapon: At sixth level, the Cloud Giant may wield a weapon one size category larger than normal without penalty. Colossal cloud giants simply do an extra 2d6 damage with weapons that are effectively a size category larger than them. This stacks with Powerful Build.

Breath of Wind: At seventh level, the Cloud Giant can let loose with a breath that duplicates a Gust of Wind spell as a standard action, at will. This is not a magical effect, but an extraordinary ability. At 11 HD, this becomes an immediate action. At 19 HD, the Breath of Wind effect affects all other creatures as though they were one size category smaller.

Grind His Bones...: At seventh level, the Cloud Giant can strike hard enough to crush his opponents' bones. When the giant strikes an opponent that is smaller than him with a natural attack, boulder or two handed weapon, he also delivers 1 point of constitution damage. Further, when a Cloud Giant successfully initiates a grapple, he constricts the opponent for an amount of damage equivalent to his Slam attack and 1 point of Constitution damage. Grappled opponents cannot slip from the Cloud Giant's grip with a freedom of movement effect.

Stand Tall: At eighth level, the Cloud Giant cannot fall prone if he does not wish it, and cannot be made to move against his will. Instead, if the Cloud Giant would fall prone, he may instead stumble back 5'. As a further benefit, creatures one or more size categories smaller than the Cloud Giant cannot make Coup De Grace attacks against him when he is helpless. Attacks or abilities that would move the Cloud Giant (such as hurricane gales, overrun attacks) simply fail to budge him from where he stands.

The Cloud Giant always lands on his feet, and uses d4 instead of d6 for fall damage. This reduces to d3 at 12th level and d2 at 16th.

Sky Kith: At ninth level, the Cloud Giant is well attuned to the air, the sky and the clouds, and finds life easier in many small ways. A Cloud Giant with nine levels in the class can treat any jump as having a running start. He suffers no attack penalties while levitating, and may levitate himself, willing subjects and objects on a horizontal plane. A turn spent levitating something horizontally precludes vertical movement, and vice versa. Lastly, the Cloud Giant is more skilled with his manipulation of his obscuring mist - he may will it to move up to 5' for every 3HD he has each round and suffers only half the miss chance for concealment that it (or any other cloud, fog or mist effect) generates.

At 15HD, the Cloud Giant suffers no miss chance when attacking through an obscuring mist effect.

Great Clap: At tenth level, the Cloud Giant can bring his hands (or weapon and shield, or two weapons) together with an impact that can shatter eardrums and knock people from their feet. This is a full round action, and forces everyone in earshot to make a fortitude save (10 + ½ HD + Giant's Str) or be deafened for 1 hour. Opponents in the Giant's threatened area (not counting extended reach afforded by ranged weapons) can elect to make attacks of opportunity (if in reach) or reflex saves (same DC as above). The action completes regardless of successful attacks of opportunity, and any foes who fail (or elect not to make) the save are knocked directly away from the Giant, out of his threatened area, and fall prone.

Skyborn: At eleventh level, the Cloud Giant is acutely aware of every movement of the air around him, and the currents of air move at his whim. His scent ability triples in range (with his ability to smell blood reaching 270') and he gains blindsight out to 45'.

Cloud Palace: At eleventh level, the Cloud Giant is sufficiently attuned to the elemental air to begin preparing his or her cloud palace. A cloud giant may, 1/day, turn a body of fog, mist or cloud (up to 10'x10' per HD) into Cloudstone. Cloudstone retains its cloudy and airborne nature, but is not dispersed with wind or flame. Cloudstone is sturdy enough to hold structures and will remain aloft without difficulty. Creatures smaller than large size who fall prone on Cloudstone must make a reflex save (DC 15, +2 for every size category smaller than medium) or fall through, but it is otherwise treated like solid ground.

Further, all costs for building structures on Cloudstone are halved, as the material is naturally attuned to the wishes of the air-attuned Cloud Giant and provides an optimal foundation. Cloudstone that is not bolstered by a Cloud Giant at least once every six months begins to dissolve, with structures residing on it suffering damage as though from an earthquake (and another earthquake every 1d6 months) until the Cloudstone is attended to or all structures are leveled.

Cloudstone is mobile, and for a 20% increase in the price of building on the Cloudstone platform, the Cloud Giant can see sails, windmills and other features added to the structure to allow the movement of the Cloudstone castle to be directed. This allows the Cloudstone platform to move up to a maximum of 64 miles in a 24 hour period; roll a d100, this is how much the winds allow the Cloudstone to drift with the wind (ie. a 50 would mean it moved 50% of its capacity, or 32 miles over 24 hours). In consistently heavier winds, at the DM's discretion, the Cloudstone might move twice or thrice as far.

Comments:

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Still a little rough around the edges, but it's playable. I want a better picture for it, but there's not a lot of good pictures of cloud giants.

So he's not so combat focused as the other giants and in exchange, gets more skill points, some SLAs and some utility.

But basically, he lets you build castles in the sky, he's got some thematic abilities that throw back to Jack and the Beanstalk, he's got a strong enough nose that he can operate pretty effectively when in the midst of his own obscuring mist, and when battling those blasted gnomes who trouble giants so much, you can nab the the little bastards, stuff them into a barrel and then throw them 350 feet away (ideally into water or off a cliff/cloud) with boulder toss.

Additional Comment: I admit the Cloud Giant stalled for a good while, and I only just wrapped it up. As such, there may be details that have slipped my mind since I started the monster class, or discrepancies. Please inform me if you spot anything egregious.

I spent way too long trying to find a good picture, and the one that appears above is me cheating. I'm open to suggestions: I don't want to use the SRD picture that has 2 other giant's faces in the same picture, and want to keep true to the art direction (pale, silvery/brassy hair, civilized looking). A friend suggested looking for pictures of Zeus, but I couldn't find any decent pictures without the guy holding lightning or without the naked man parts in plain view.

Changelog:

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Clarified blindsight via. Fee Fi Fo Fum.
Changed wording on Haughty
Clarified that Oversized Weapon stacks with Powerful Build.

[Draken]

The anaxim.

[Hyudra]

MM5. NE Large Outsider (Evil, Extraplanar). Master of knowledge and keeper of secrets. Can attack with rain droplets around it that are actually a physical form of distilled thought. Can't actually speak, but has telepathy and understands all languages and has the delightful fluff of knowing almost everything about a person just by conversing with them telepathically. No save or check, it just happens.

Thanks for the description. Doesn't seem like my kind of thing to homebrew, so I'll pass.

The anaxim.

• I don't know that I see the point in having nifty hand weapon options if electricity discharge is blatantly better (in both damage output, range and the fact that it's a touch attack).
• Stat bonuses are too high, methinks. It's already a very solid class, it doesn't need stat bonuses to help it in any meaningful way (maybe strength to compensate for the BAB loss, but that's about it).
• Spell likes scale a little too fast for my liking:
  At 20th level you can cast...
  
  • Blur 20x a day.
  • Inflict Light Damage 20x a day.
  • Repair Light Damage 20x a day.
  • Inflict Moderate Damage 20x a day.
  • Repair Moderate Damage 20x a day.
  • Inflict Serious Damage 20x a day.
  • Repair Serious Damage 20x a day.
  • Lesser Armor Enhancement 10x a day.
  • Magical Vestment 10x a day.
  • Invisibility 10x a day.
  • Lightning Bolt 10x a day.
  • Lesser Weapon Enhancement 10x a day.
  • Greater Magical Weapon 10x a day.
  • Inflict Critical Damage 10x a day.
  • Repair Critical Damage 10x a day.
  • Armor Enhancement 6x a day.
  • Lesser Dispel Magic 6x a day.
  • Displacement 6x a day.
  • Greater Invisibility 6x a day.
  • Weapon Enhancement 6x a day.
  • Disable Construct 6x a day.
  • Total Repair 6x a day.
  • Greater Dispel Magic 5x a day.
  • Greater Armor Enhancement 5x a day.
  • Ethereal Jaunt 5x a day.
  • Chain Lightning 5x a day.
  • Greater Weapon Enhancement 5x a day.
• You wind up with a whole lot (287) of rather usable spell-likes per day, on top of decent damage output, solid defenses, huge mobility, yadda yadda, naught but yadda.
• It works its way up to 70' base move speed? Is it just me, or is this a little much?
• Again, as I get deeper into the class, I find the melee abilities fail to wow me. Pneumatic drive is nice, but Apocalyptic Drive and Instruments of Deicide don't really impress given how late they show up.

[Magicyop]

If Dream Larva is okay, I'd like to work on the 7-level Quesar next, from Book of Exalted Deeds. It's basically a star fallen to earth, has a radius of light and all kinds of stuff. Definitely something I'd play as.

Hyudra, I hope you don't mind if I take a page out of your book as far as formatting goes.

[Hyudra]

If Dream Larva is okay, I'd like to work on the 7-level Quesar next, from Book of Exalted Deeds. It's basically a star fallen to earth, has a radius of light and all kinds of stuff. Definitely something I'd play as.

Hyudra, I hope you don't mind if I take a page out of your book as far as formatting goes.

I don't mind at all, regarding formatting.

TBH, I haven't really looked over the dream larvae. It's not something that would appear in one of my games, and my games don't tend to range into the epic scale, so it's a little out of my bailiwick. At the same time, though, you've been waiting a while for some concrete feedback, so (with the notion that it won't be perfect in mind...), your feedback:

Dream Larva

• Native plane?
• Edit: Ability scores - list them as you would an ability (after 'Monster Body', but before the 1st level abilities), and note when they come & what the totals are. The Cha bonus may seem thematic, but it inflates the DCs for the class abilities to pretty ridiculous levels. At 20th level you're looking at a DC of what, 10+10 (HD)+9 (Cha)? At a bare minimum? Add in a +5 Cha necklace or a few feats, and we're getting to the point that enemies are going to be dropping like flies (not that they aren't already, see below).
• Natural armor is pretty ridiculous. Most creatures are {stat mod}, or 1+{stat mod}. Larvae is 4+{stat mod}.
• Is 'It may not wear armor' necessary? It lacks proficiency anyways, and you're shutting out options for multiclassing and whatnot. Perhaps it would be better to address specific abilities that wouldn't work in armor?
• I may be missing something, but why have the touch attack available when you could just detail the ranged touch attack (Which you can theoretically use at melee range, since there's no minimum range) instead? You can detail the possibility of using melee attacks in conjunction with soporific touch at the appropriate level.
• It really, really, really helps if one states when the ability is granted, in the ability description. (At sixth level, the toad gains...) If I'm reading through the class, and I see "unreal healing: you gain fast healing". I then have to scroll up to the table & find it, then scroll back down to where I was at. It gets old really fast. Especially true in 20 level classes where there's a lot of table & a lot of abilities.
• Stuff starts to become problematic at 6th level. You've now got a full attack that can drop many equivalent level targets in a single round with a relatively modest (including the bonuses from the class) strength score. (I'm assuming you've picked up multiattack with the level, because you'd be daft not to).
• This becomes even more vicious when you've got large size, and adds up pretty fast with improved grab (perhaps improved grab should specify one type of natural attack, or progress to include all of them at a later point in time)? I bear reservations about a large creature with incredible speed that can close in combat, then the next round, deliver 5 attacks each with a (decent) chance of grappling the (generally smaller) target. (Which is later followed by sucking the victim in). Seems too easy and doesn't offer much variety in gameplay.
• For Dark Summoning, I'd specify that any of the summoned shadow's spawn disappear when the shadow does.
• "they take 1d6 points of wisdom damage for every 5 HD." - needs a bit of clarifying (5HD of the larva, I assume).
• Really not a fan of the 'free action, everyone must save or lose' AoE effects. Especially since it effectively gets several, letting it open up every confrontation with Glimpse of Terror (Save or panic), then Darkest Fears (Save or be frightened), then Bad Dreams (Save or be shaken). Even when it's not its turn (Enemy approaches? Fire them all off!). In need of revision - something more substantial in terms of the economy of actions, and perhaps getting Glimpse of Terror replaces Darkest Fears (and on the same note, getting Darkest fears precludes being able to use Bad Dreams).
• Arachnoid Embrace - Well, I can't see the Dream Larva losing any fight when it closes to melee. I have my reservations, but as I said, I'm not overly familiar with D&D after levels 14-15. It really seems like a lot to me (9 attacks in a full attack, each allowing a grapple check, with massive damage on each).
• Save or die at 20th level has same general issues as the ones above. You can effectively fire off 3 "save or lose" effects any time an enemy gets close, without needing to use action.
• Craft (Dreamweaving) - factotums rejoice.
• I'm not going to get into the epic progression until we've hashed out more of the base class.

[Magicyop]

I just want to thank you very much for the critique, your suggestions are excellent and I'm working on editing now.

The free action things used to be just "the first time someone sees you" but Gorgon suggested I liken it more to a gaze attack so that the Dream Larva doesn't frighten their comrades. The idea is that the various fear auras are not things that can be used separately, or at different strengths, but that you activate your fear aura and it has an effect according to your level. AKA, at level 20, you can activate it once for each person, with the save-or-die effect, you may no longer use the panick, cower, frighten, or shaken fear auras. I will make that more clear.

How does a bonus every two levels sound? AKA, +1 Str at 1st, +1 Cha at 3rd, +1 Str at 5th, etcetera.

Also, it has no native plane, I don't believe, what should I put? Basically it's just the unholy spawn of a god of dreams. Could be anywhere.

[Chambers]

Dwarf Ancestor

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Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d10
Class Skills: The dwarf ancestor's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge: History (Int), Knowledge: The Planes (Int), Listen (Wis), & Spot (Wis).

Skill Points at 1st level: (4 + Int mod) x4.
Skill Points at each additional level: 4+ Int modifier.

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special Ability
1|+1|+2|+0|+0|Ancestor Body, +1 Str, +1 Con
2|+2|+3|+0|+0|Power Attack, +1 Str, +1 Con
3|+3|+3|+1|+1|Ancestoral Spirit, Hardening, +1 Str, +1 Con
4|+4|+4|+1|+1|Cleave, +1 Str, +1 Con
5|+5|+4|+1|+1|Blink Out, Growth, +1 Str, +1 Con
6|+6/+1|+5|+2|+2|Supreme Cleave, Improved Hardening, +1 Str, +1 Con
[/table]

Ancestor Body: The dwarf ancestor loses all other racial traits and becomes an outsider with the native subtype. The dwarf ancestor has the following characteristics:

• Darkvision 60ft
• Proficient with all simple and martial weapons. Not proficient with any type of armor or shields.
• Does not need to eat, sleep, or breath, but can still benefit from the effects of consumable spells and magic items such as heroes' feats and potions. Spellcasters must still rest for 8 hours before regaining spells for the day.
• Natural Armor bonus equal to Constitution modifier
• Damage Reduction (Adamantine) equal to Half Hit Die (minimum DR 1/Adamantine).
• Living Plate
• Light Fortification

Living Plate: The Dwarf Ancestor's body is actually a form of living stone that provides a +4 armor bonus and resembles full plate. This living plate is not natural armor and does not stack with other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor). The living plate occupies the same space on the body as a suit of armor or a robe, and thus a dwarf ancestor cannot wear armor or magic robes. Dwarf ancestors can be enchanted just as armor can, though the ancestor dwarf must be present for the entire time it takes to enchant him.

Living plate also provides an dwarf ancestor with a 5% arcane spell failure chance, though any class ability that allows an ancestor dwarf to ignore the arcane spell failure chance for light armor lets him ignore this penalty as well.

Light Fortification (Ex): When a critical hit or sneak attack is scored on a dwarf ancestor, there is a 25% chance that the critical hit or sneak attack is negated and damage is instead rolled normally.

Power Attack (Ex): At 2nd level the dwarf ancestor gains Power Attack as a bonus feat.

Ancestral Spirit (Su): Any ally (including the dwarf ancestor) within 30ft of the dwarf ancestor gains a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls.

Hardening (Ex): The armor bonus provided by the dwarf ancestors living plate increases to +6.

Cleave (Ex): At 4th level the dwarf ancestor gains Cleave as a bonus feat.

Blink Out (Su): Once per encounter as a free action the dwarf ancestor can become incorpreal until the beginning of it's next turn. Activating this ability is a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Growth (Ex): At 5th level the dwarf ancestor increases in size to Large (tall).

Supreme Cleave (Ex): At 6th level and higher a dwarf ancestor may take a 5ft step before making a cleave attempt.

Improved Hardening (Ex): The armor bonus provided by the dwarf ancestors living plate increases to +8.

Comments/Changelog

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I took a page from the Warforged and gave the dwarf ancestor a version of composite plating that can be enchanted. The armor bonus increases as the dwarf ancestor gains levels until at level 6 the living plate grants a +8 armor bonus.

The dwarf ancestor's natural armor gets reduced significantly to balance this, thereby avoiding the trap of having a really high natural armor bonus but not being able to wear armor.

Blink Out is modified to once per encounter and Ancestral Spirit is changed to all allies (not just dwarves).

Supreme Cleave helps out with an otherwise lack-luster combat option.

Overall the dwarf ancestor is a simple tank, with a high armor class and good damage reduction. It doesn't come with advanced combat tactics built in but is instead a good chassis for melee characters.

[AugustNights]

I don't suppose getting a link on the front page to monster images is too much to ask? There were two recommended, might expedite a small part of the process. This and This.