Community Based Monster Classes VI

[Frog Dragon]

Point taken. Reduced to 6+Int

[ScionoftheVoid]

Lodestone Marauder:
Must... refrain... from Miracles reference....
Eeeeenyhoo.
Lesser Magnetic Repulsion: one damage to whom?
...Otherwise, though, I think it's okay. Though I'd replace magneto-kinetic mastery with simply "telekinesis at will, metal objects only." Much simpler and much more versatile. And it also gives it an option against enemies that are not using metal objects.
Also, I keep thinking of a group using their lodestone marauder as the surface of a refrigerator, using scrap metal to stick notes and pictures and notices to it.

Fairly sure I wouldn't know what you were talking about if you did make a reference, so whatever.

One damage to anyone in its path to the edge of the area.

TK, metal-only would cut down on text, good idea.

Not necessarily a bad idea, at least until you get into combat. You could, however, use it Space Marine style, with metal seals holding on documents of your party's deeds, their deities' scriptures and the like.

I'll get it edited presently.

[Lix Lorn]

Fairly sure I wouldn't know what you were talking about if you did make a reference, so whatever.

****ing magnets, how do they work?

[Saidoro]

Monstrous Spider

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HD: D6

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will |Special
1st|+0|+2|+2|+0| Spider Body, Bugbite, Web, +1 Dex
2nd|+1|+3|+3|+0| Silk Strand, Evasion, +1 Str, +1 Con
3rd|+2|+3|+3|+1| Arachnophobia I, Web Spinner, +1 Dex, +1 Con
4th|+3|+4|+4|+1| Growth, Skitter, +1 Str, +1 Dex
5th|+3|+4|+4|+1| Silk Skein, +1 Str, +1 Con
6th|+4|+5|+5|+2| Spiderbite, Uncanny Dodge, +1 Dex, +1 Con
7th|+5|+5|+5|+2| Growth II, Arachnophobia II, +1 Str, +1 Dex
8th|+6|+6|+6|+2| Weaver, Twitchleap, +1 Str, +1 Con
9th|+6|+6|+6|+3| Silk Lattice, +1 Dex, +1 Con
10th|+7|+7|+7|+3| Growth III, Eerie Chitter, +1 Str, +1 Dex
11th|+8|+7|+7|+3| Arachnid's Bite, Arachnophobia, +1 Str, +1 Con[/table]

Skill Points 4+Int per level
Class Skills: Climb, Balance, Hide, Jump, Move Silently, Spot, Survival, Tumble, Use Rope.

Proficiencies: The Spider is proficient only with its own natural attacks.

Spider Body: The Monstrous Spider, hereafter referred to as the Spider, loses all other racial bonuses and gains traits of the Vermin type, granting her Darkvision 60'. Spiders are initially small sized creatures with a base movement speed of 30' and a climb speed of 20', possessing a bite attack that delivers 1d4 + Str mod damage and a poison, described in bugbite, below. Spiders have natural armor equal to their con modifiers.

Spiders do not speak. Those who spend at least a week in the Spider's company can learn to understand her body language and chittering enough to understand simple expressions such as 'danger', 'hate', 'gratitude' and the like. Spiders lack fine manipulation, but do have the ability to pick up one item and carry it, pull levers, and perform other simple actions (but still lack the ability to perform complex or delicate actions like wielding a weapon or taking an item in or out of a saddlebag). Not really a critique on this, just a comment on the current non-speaking setup in general: Should we be allowing characters with wild empathy to understand them right from the get-go?

Attribute Bonus: The Spider gains a bonus to Dexterity at every level except 2nd, 5th, 8th and 11th. They gain a bonus to Strength at every level except 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th. They gain a bonus to Constitution at every level except 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th. This adds up to a total bonus of +7 Str, +7 Dex and +7 Con at 11th level.

Bugbite: The first level Spider sports a venomous bite. The nature of the venom depends on the Spider. In any event, the poison allows a Fortitude save, with a DC of 10 + ½ Spider HD + Spider's Con. On a failed saving throw, the victim takes attribute damage based on the Spider's HD as described on the table below:

{table=head]HD|Initial Damage|Secondary Damage
1|1d4|1d4
3|1d4|1d6
6|1d6|1d6
9|1d6|1d8
12|1d8|2d6
15|2d6|2d6
18|2d6|3d6[/table]

At first level, the Spider picks a physical attribute: Strength, Dexterity or Constitution. The poison deals ability damage to this attribute. At later levels, this poison can be enhanced with options chosen from Spiderbite and Arachnid Bite, with further possible options being included on the Arachnophobia lists. Why are they using the same poison advancement table as the wyvern when the entire point of a wyvern is how unusually powerful their poison is?

Web: The Monstrous Spider is notorious for the webs she uses to trap and entangle her foes. The spider gains one web use an hour, to a maximum number of stored uses equal to the Spider's HD or its Con mod, whichever is lower. Each time the Spider grows a size category, the maximum number of web uses is increased by 50%. This increase is additive, not cumulative, as detailed on the table below:

{table=head]Size|Maximum Web Uses Stored
Small|Equal to HD or Con, whichever is lower.
Medium|Equal to 1.5x HD or 1.5x Con mod, whichever is lower.
Large|Equal to 2x HD or 2x Con mod, whichever is lower.
Huge|Equal to 2.5x HD or 2.5x Con mod, whichever is lower.
Gargantuan|Equal to 3x HD or 3x Con mod, whichever is lower.
Colossal|Equal to 3.5x HD or 3.5x Con mod, whichever is lower.[/table]

The Spider may shoot webbing at a foe up to one size category larger than her as a standard action. Why only one category? It seems like they should be able to shoot web at anything, just not necasarily have it do much good. This spends one stored use of webbing and has a range increment of 10', to a maximum range of 50'. Shouldn't this increase as they get bigger? This is a ranged touch attack that entangles the target on a hit, much in the same manner as a net. Entangled creatures are entangled until they can make a successful Strength or Escape Artist check (DC 10 + ½ Spider's HD + Spider's Con mod). Does making this check require an action or is it just something that gets done as part of whatever else?

A strand with a base AC of 15 extends between the victim and the Spider, which can be cut with a slashing weapon by any non-entangled individual within reach. Though the strand initially has the consistency and thickness of rope, it has hardness equal to the Spider's HD, to a maximum of double the Spider's Con mod, and has 2hp per HD of the Spider. Cutting this strand does not free the victim from the entangled status, but it does disconnect the victim from the Spider, which may spare the victim some grief. As the Spider controls the length of the strand, the affected victim may not move beyond the limits of the Strand's length (which is whatever the distance between victim and Spider was when they were ensnared) unless they best the Spider in a Strength check, in which case they move half speed, dragging the Spider behind them. The Spider is similarly restricted in movement, but the Spider can disconnect the strand as a free action, and may thus avoid being dragged or free herself to move beyond the strand's limits by disconnecting herself if she so wishes.

ie. Muffet is a Monstrous Spider who successfully hits a hapless commoner, Brandon, with her webs from 20' away. Brandon may not move into any square more than 20' away from Muffet unless he makes and succeeds in an opposed Strength check. Succeeding in his strength check, he manages to drag himself 15', half his movement allowance of 30'. However, as he drags the spider behind himself, he fails to create a gap between himself and the vicious spider that seeks to devour him.

A Spider may only have a strand attached to one target at a given point in time. Spiders are immune to the movement impairing and entangling effects of all webs, be they natural or magically created.

Silk Strand: The second level Spider is adept at reeling in prey with its webbing and binding them. The Spider gains the following options when dealing with foes she has entangled with her webs:

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• Ensnaring Strand: The Spider may, as a standard action, fire off a single strand of web as a touch attack, adhering to a struck target. Treat this as a successful hit with Web, above, except the target is not entangled. This has half again as much range of a typical web attack, with 15' range increments and a maximum range of 75'. Unlike a Web attack, Ensnaring Strand only consumes a web use if the hit is successful. If they're not entangled couldn't they just cut themselves loose?
  
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• Reel In: The Spider may make an opposed strength check against a foe she has a strand attached to. If she succeeds, the foe is pulled 5' towards the Spider, plus an additional 5' for every 2 points the foe failed the Strength check. This takes up any slack in the webbing, setting the strand's length to the distance between the target and the Spider, with foes rendered unable to move further away from the Spider without making a Strength check (see Web, above, for more details on webs and limited range of movement). If the spider is above the foe, then the foe is lifted off the ground, suspended. The way this reads is a spider will always pull a victim it is above off the ground, but that doesn't make any sense if, say the spider is 15' off the ground and 15 horizontal feet away from a victim and only pulls them 10'. Similarly, if the foe is dragged off a ledge and there is not enough slack in the strand to let them touch ground, they hang in mid air, suspended. The suspended state translates to the foe being immobilized (unable to move from their current position) and flat footed until freed (or until they free themselves), and they hang in the air, moving when the Spider moves (typically hanging below her, but they may be raised or lowered, or move alongside her, depending on their position relative to hers).
  
  The Spider can only suspend foes that she could otherwise lift. She cannot use Reel In to lift opponents off the ground if such would render her overly encumbered. If an opponent falls off a ledge, reaching the end of the strand's slack, and is too heavy for her to lift, she may either cut the strand and let them fall or be dragged off the ledge behind them.
  
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• Let Slack: The Spider lets the webbing loose to fall to the ground. She gives the victim anywhere from 5' to 15' of extra length to work with, effectively adding to their (and her own) range of movement. For those hanging suspended, this lowers them toward the ground. Until the target or the spider take up the slack again (moving to the limits of the strand's length), the strand cannot be effectively severed by anyone but the Spider. This is an immediate action.
  
  Alternately, the Spider can fix herself to an object, a section of web, a wall or the ceiling and lower herself up to 15' as a move action. The Spider is flat footed in this state, but gains a bonus equal to ½ her HD to her Move Silently checks while approaching someone in this fashion.
  
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• Attach: The Spider attaches the web strand to an object. She may do this before, in the midst of, or after a move action, as a swift action. A victim that wishes to move no longer makes an opposed Strength check against the Spider, but a Strength check to snap the strand (DC 10 + 1½ Spider's HD + Spider's Con mod) or pull the object the strand is attached to (DC dependent on the nature and weight of the object).
  
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• Bind: The Spider creates slack in the webbing and loops it around an already ensnared target, trapping them under layers of the webbing. This is performed in the same manner as a use of Web, above, and consumes a use of webbing if successful. Rather than entangle the opponent, the Bind technique imposes a -2 penalty to Str and a -2 penalty to Dex for the bound foe, and lowers all of their movement speeds by 5' or 25% (rounding down to the nearest multiple of 5), whichever is more. Further, if the bound opponent is adjacent to an object which one could reach around if they so wished (the spider doesn't have to be that close, but she should be able to send slack strands more or less around the object) weave around or attach the strands to (such as a tree, a pillar, a rock, a statue), the entangled opponent is immobilized until they free themselves. This may be applied multiple times, and the penalties are cumulative. If the foe frees themselves from the entanglement, they also strip themselves free of the layers of binding.
  
  A Spider that devours a bound foe or the discarded webbing left behind when a foe freed themselves also digests sufficient proteins from web and/or victim to regain one web usage for every two that were used to bind the target (including the initial use of web to ensnare them). This is a standard action.

Evasion: The senses and reflexes of the second level Spider are exceedingly fine tuned, with fine hairs on the Spider's body alerting her to the most subtle shifts in the air and the vermin's reflexes allowing a near instantaneous response to a sensed threat. If she makes a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, she instead takes no damage. Evasion can be used only if the Spider is unarmored and at less than medium encumbrance. A helpless Spider does not gain the benefit of evasion.

If a Spider already has evasion from a different source, she automatically gains improved evasion instead. If she already has that, she gains a bonus feat.

Arachnophobia I: The third level spider features a unique trait specific to her environment or her particular species of spider, rarely pleasant. See the lists below:

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• Pick One:
  
  • Enzyme: The Spider's poison causes tissue necrosis as digestive elements in the poison eat the flesh, causing tissues to dissolve in much the same way as if it were rotting away or being digested. For every point of ability damage an opponent sustains from the Spider's poison, that opponent takes 1 point of necrosis damage, which can only be healed naturally and only when both the poison and ability damage are mended. This is very mild.
    
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  • Brood Mother: The Spider's poison contains egg sacs. Unwitting victims are in for a grim surprise when the poison sets in and the egg sacs hatch. Should a poisoned victim fail the save against both initial and secondary damage, a multitude of tiny spiders erupt from their body, exiting by way of the nearest orifice - typically the bite wound, but some are bound to travel in the blood stream or the like, making their departure by way of the nose, mouth, ears, tear duct or nether regions. This is effectively a Summon Swarm spell, summoning spiders in the affected enemy's square, but is an extraordinary effect. The victim sustains 1d6 damage per 2 HD of the Spider, and one swarm is summoned for every 4HD of the spider. The swarm does not attack the Spider or her close allies, as they detect pheromones that mark these individuals as family. The Swarm thereafter follows their mother for 1 hour per 2HD of the Spider, after which time most die of exposure, and the remainder scatter to the dark, moist corners of their current environment. Most, thereafter, become prey for local rats and birds. Even so, a small handful invariably survive and grow into Monstrous Spiders like their mother. And this is very powerful. the spider will almost always be walking around with swarms of kiddies following them around which many monsters may not be equipped to handle. Not to mention the spider who buys 20 cows before going adventuring and bites all of them immediately before facing the BBEG.
    
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  • Tarsus Impaler: The Spider gains two claw attacks as secondary weapons, each dealing only 1d4-2 + ½ Str mod piercing damage. However, a Spider that catches an opponent when they are not gaining their dexterity to armor class - by virtue of being denied dexterity to AC, such as by being flat footed, or due to the fact that their effective dexterity is too low to grant a positive bonus to AC - can take a full round action to attempt impaling them with the pointed end of her leg. This special claw 'impaler' attack (a single secondary attack made as a full round action) deals 2d6 + 2x Str mod damage to the victim, +1d6 damage for every size category the Spider is larger than small. Opponents who are struck in this manner are immobilized until the spider withdraws her leg from their body (a free action on the Spider's part) or they make a strength check to free themselves (DC 10 + ½ Spider's HD + Spider's Str mod +2 for each leg after the first that has impaled them). Does this automatically use both your claw attacks? can you choose whether you use one or both?
    
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  • Razor Tangle: The taut line of the Spider's Web is akin to razor wire. An entangled opponent who fails a Strength check against the spider (such as in an attempt to move or an attempt to resist being dragged) or who fails to free himself from the web (by way of escape artist or strength check) sustains 1d6 slashing damage per 3HD of the spider. Does a character who fails their strength check to break free of the web take damage from both triggers? Further, a Clotheslined opponent (see the 5th level ability, Silk Skein, below) who rolls a 1 on the Reflex save is decapitated by the razor strand. This chance increases by 1 per 5HD of the spider (ie. decapitation on a 1 or a 2 at 5HD, a 1, 2 or 3 at 10HD, and so on).

Web Spinner: Starting at third level, the Spider can spin sheets of webs. Spinning a web is a full round action that consumes one of the Spider's web uses and either covers 15' in tiles, +5' per size category of the Spider, or stretches between two points that the Spider moves between in a given round, to a maximum of 15' +5' per size category of the Spider. A Spider resting on an existing web may extend the perimeter by the same amount with another web usage and a full round action. After use, as an action taking one minute, the Spider can consume the softest parts of the web, regaining one web use for every two consumed in the web's production, destroying the web in the process. Creatures who approach the web must succeed on a Spot check (DC 10 + ½ Spider's HD + Spider's Dex mod) to notice the web.

Those who fail to notice the web are more likely to stumble into it. In any event, any individual that moves into the webbed spaces becomes entangled as though struck by a successful web attack, albeit with no strand connecting them to the Spider.

Growth: A fourth level Spider grows a size category, typically to medium size. Her reach, grapple modifiers, natural attack damage and skills change accordingly, but she doesn't gain any ability score bonuses or penalties.

Further, the Spider grows again at a later date. When she achieves 13HD, she grows another size category in the same fashion.

Skitter: The fourth level Spider is capable of moving across a variety of surfaces, including walls. She gains two mobility benefits:

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• The Spider can run and charge while climbing, and can segue between a climb and a run (to a maximum distance equal to double its climb speed) as part of a charge action. Changing the angle of the charge (ie. going from running on the ceiling to the wall to the floor) does not count against the Spider for the purposes of needing to charge in a straight line. I'm so going to need to clarify this.
  
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• The lightweight body of the Spider, coupled with the ability for its legs to brace itself, means she takes damage from falls and impacts (such as being slammed into a wall or thrown) in the form of 1d4s rather than 1d6s. For each size category the Spider grows beyond Medium, she reduces all fall damage by 1 point and the size of the fall damage dice by one step (ie. from 1d4 at medium to 1d3 at large, 1d2 at huge and 1 point thereafter). The bigger they are the softer they fall?

Silk Skein: A Spider of fifth level or higher gains the ability to use further techniques with her web. She adds the following abilities to her repertoire:

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• Jerk Line: The Spider can attempt to trip an enemy she has a web strand attached to, even from a distance as far as fifty feet away. This is a standard action involving a dexterity check opposed by the opponent's choice of Strength or Dexterity check. The standard size modifiers apply. This provokes no attack of opportunity and opponents do not get a trip attack against the Spider should she fail.
  
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• Whip Cord: The Spider heaves a strand of silk so it snaps near the far end, forcing an enemy to stumble. As a standard action, the Spider makes an opposed Strength check against a foe she has a strand attached to. If she succeeds, the foe staggers 5' for every 3 points she beat the opponent's result by, to a maximum of 15'. The Spider determines the direction of the stagger, and foes that strike a wall, solid object or another individual must make a reflex save (DC 10 + ½ Spider's HD + Spider's Str) or fall prone. Individuals who face collision by a Whip Corded enemy but who make their reflex save do not fall prone. Enemies who stumble off a ledge may become suspended, as described in Silk Strand, above.
  
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• Clothesline: A Spider may take any slack strand of webbing that is firmly connected to another source and draw it tight, impeding the movement of a foe that would move between her and her entangled victim (or a terrain feature, if she attached the cord to such earlier) and potentially causing them to fall. This uses the same mechanics as Jerk Line, only it affects the foe who would move through the area between the Spider and the other end of her strand. Even for foes who succeed, the tiles with the strand in them become difficult terrain. Using Clothesline is an immediate action that also forfeits the Spider's swift action for her next turn.
  
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• Pendulum Swing: A Spider who has an enemy suspended below her may swing the opponent like a pendulum as a standard action. She makes a Strength check against a DC of 15. On a success, she swings the opponent 5' in the direction of her choice, plus an additional 5' for every 3 points she beat the DC by, to a maximum distance of ½ the Strand's slack. If the Spider adds slack to the Strand, then the swing distance is increased accordingly.
  
  ie. Muffet the Spider has Brandon the hapless commoner entangled, hanging 30' below her. She may swing Brandon 15' (half of 30') in any direction. Muffet adds 10' of slack to the Strand, and Brandon's subsequent swings carry him 20' (half of 40') to either side.
  On their turn, the opponent swings back the same distance, in the direction they came. Thereafter, on both the Spider's and the Victim's turns (until the Spider drops the foe or uses another Swing action to cancel out the momentum) the opponent will move that set distance either to the extreme of the Strand's limits or back to the point below the Spider. So they just keep swinging forever? Sticky webs attached to heavy spiders or unyielding rocks are not efficient machines.
  
  Continuing our example above, Brandon would, on his turn, swing 15' back to the point below the spider. On Muffet's next turn, he would swing 15' in the direction opposite the angle he originally swung, and so the process would continue back and forth until Muffet grew tired of tormenting him and devoured him messily.
  If the swinging foe strikes an object, wall or another individual on the initial swing, they take falling damage as though they had fallen the base swing distance. On subsequent swings, the victim counts as though they had fallen twice the base swing distance. Struck targets also take the falling damage, but get a reflex save (10 + ½ Spider HD + Spider's Str) to avoid, which prevents damage to both themselves and the makeshift pendulum if successful.
  
  Muffet Swings Brandon 20' into a wall. He takes 2d6 falling damage. His turn passes (he swings to a point below Muffet) and on her next turn, he continues swinging, slamming into the wall on the other side of the room. This swing, and all subsequent swings, deal 4d6 falling damage.
  A foe disconnected in the process of swinging continues traveling in the direction he or she was last swinging as she falls, adding the swing distance to the fallen distance for the purposes of calculating fall damage.
  
  A Spider that hangs from a Strand is free to swing herself in the same manner, if she so wishes.

Spiderbite: The sixth level spider gains the ability to make iterative bite attacks against entangled foes. Further, she may enhance her poison with an option from the list below:

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• The DC of the Fortitude save increases by 2.
• The Poison deals +2 Str, Dex or Con damage (whichever attribute was chosen to apply to poison at first level) as part of the initial and secondary damage.
• The Spider's poison corrodes the enemy's armor,lowering their AC by 1d4 on a successful bite attack. To undo the effect, the armor must be repaired (for removable armor) or healed like ability damage (for natural armor).
• The bite damage is considered to be vile damage and 1/3rd of the ability damage is Str, Dex or Con drain (round up), instead.
• Bite attacks on already poisoned foes allow a saving throw (same DC as the poison), with failure causing the victim to become fatigued and sickened for as long as the poison lasts, as the Spider overloads their systems with venom. Subsequent attacks can (again, allowing a saving throw) cause the victim to become either exhausted for 1 hour or nauseated for 1d3 rounds (Spider's choice).

Uncanny Dodge: Starting at sixth level, a Spider can react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if she is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, she still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.

If a Spider already has uncanny dodge from a different source, she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead. If she already has that, she gains a bonus feat.

Growth II: A seventh level Spider grows a size category, typically to large size. Her reach, grapple modifiers, natural attack damage and skills change accordingly, but she doesn't gain any ability score bonuses or penalties.

Further, the Spider grows again at a later date. When she achieves 16HD, she grows another size category in the same fashion.

Arachnophobia II: The seventh level spider gains another a unique capability specific to her environment or her particular species of spider. See the list below:

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• Pick One:
  
  • Silent Skirr: The Spider suffers no penalty to hide or move silently for running or fighting. Okay, so the guards won't here the spider hitting the guard at the gate. They'll just hear the guard getting hit. (Or hitting back if he has time.)
    
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  • Ebon Carapace: The Spider has concealment at all times. In shadow, she has total concealment. The Spider gains a +2 bonus to Hide.
    
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  • Gossamer Strand: Whenever the Spider uses Web or Ensnaring Strand, she also produces a cloud of gossamer webbing, fine as human hair, that sticks to her target, every tile her strand or web passed over, and every tile adjacent to both target and affected tiles. Objects in the affected area are webbed down and anyone attempting to retrieve or pick up affected items or operate any machinery (including complex machinery such as a crank or simple machines such as doors) covered must make a Strength check (DC 10 + ½ Spider's HD + Spider's Con) as a standard action or fail to budge the item in question. Machinery that works on its own (such as a trap) and ranged weapons (such as a bow or crossbow) have a 50% chance to fail with use. Affected foes who attempt to drop items, pick up items, access their inventory or remove belongings or clothing from their person have a 25% chance to fail, though they may attempt, as a standard action, a Strength check as described above to rip the item, weapon, flap or clothing free.
    
    Finally, opponents who are entangled by a web attack augmented by Gossamer Strand also begin to suffocate. As the strands bind to one another and grow ever tighter in the face of struggling, each failed check or save made while entangled and suffocating in this manner reduces the victim's remaining breath by two rounds.
    
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  • Arachnophobia I: Any ability from the Arachnophobia I list the Spider does not already have.

Weaver: Spiders of eighth level and higher weave their webs with what can only be called art. The Spider may have strands attached to multiple targets at the same time. Any techniques from the Silk line of abilities (Silk Strand, Silk Skein, Silk Lattice) can be used with multiple targets, select targets or just one target. For example, Reel In can be used to draw in every foe the Spider has a strand attached to, some or just one of them. In any event, for contested rolls affecting multiple foes, the foe with the highest modifier makes the opposed roll, with a +1 bonus for every +2 points of relevant ability modifier the other affected targets have.

ie. Brandon, already ensnared and entangled, watches in horror as Buttons, his cute puppy, and Fiona-May, his lady love, are ensnared by the Spider. The Spider uses Reel In to draw them closer. Brandon has a +3 Strength modifier, Buttons has a -1 and Fiona May has a +2. Fiona-May helps Brandon pull against the strands, granting Brandon a +1 (half of Fiona May's +2 Strength modifier) bonus, for a total of +4. Given that the Spider has a Strength modifier of +7, Brandon's future looks rather grim.

Further, the Ensnaring Strand ability (see Silk Strand) can now be used to target up to three foes with a single action. These foes must be within 10' of one another. So, could this be used together with pendulum swing to make one of those pendulum desk toys?

Twitchleap: The Spider, once she has reached eighth level, may leap across the battlefield with surprising agility. Her jump height is not capped by her movement speed. As far as I can tell, jump height is never capped by move speed. I've seen a few references to this sort of ability, but never in official publications and the actual jump skill says nothing of the sort. At 14HD, the DC for jump checks is halved.

Silk Lattice: At ninth level, the Spider adds two more techniques to her repertoire:

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• Elastic Strand: By spending a web use, the Spider can move from the floor to any point on a wall or ceiling within 50', from the wall to any point on the floor or ceiling within 50', or from the ceiling to any point on a wall or floor within 50'. This is a move action, and by using it, she takes a -2 penalty to attacks and her AC until the start of her next turn.
  
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• Grasping Glob: The Spider targets an item a foe carries, rather than the foe themselves, with the sticky end of a strand of web. This operates as a disarm attempt, only the Spider provokes no attack of opportunity, her opposed attack roll is ranged, and she cannot (obviously) be disarmed in retaliation. This ability consumes a web use if successful, pulling the seized item 10' towards the Spider or to the midpoint between herself and the foe, whichever is further.

Growth III: A tenth level Spider grows a size category, typically to huge size. Her reach, grapple modifiers, natural attack damage and skills change accordingly, but she doesn't gain any ability score bonuses or penalties.

Eerie Chitter: A Monstrous Spider of tenth level may haunt enemies with eerie noises that echo through the surroundings. Eerie Chitter requires a swift action, and forces every enemy in earshot to make a Will save (DC 10 + ½ Spider's HD + Spider's Cha) or be shaken. Opponents who cannot see the Spider suffer a -4 circumstance penalty. Those who fail their save by 5 or more are panicked instead. This almost seems like it should work better when they CAN'T see you. The monster you can't find is often the scariest of all.

Arachnid's Bite: The eleventh level Monstrous Spider has more dangerous bites, extending the benefits granted by Bugbite and Spiderbite, above. Pick one:

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• The Spider's poison imposes a negative level on foes failing the initial saving throw.
• The Spider's bite paralyzes foes for 1 round if they fail the initial save against poison.
• The poison deals Int, Wis or Cha damage equal to half of whatever physical ability damage it causes (the choice of mental stat is made once and applies to the poison thereafter), rounding down.
• The bite increases in damage as though the Spider grew by one size category, and its critical threat range increases by one step.

Arachnophobia III: The eleventh level spider gains a final unique trait specific to her particular approach. See the list below:

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• Pick one:
  
  • Hunter's Mandibles: The Spider treats all successful bite attacks against poisoned foes as unconfirmed critical hits.
    
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  • Lurker's Mandibles: The Spider treats all successful bite attacks against entangled foes as unconfirmed critical hits.
    
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  • Arachnophobia I, II: Any ability from the Arachnophobia I or Arachnophobia II lists the Spider does not already have.

Comments in blue.
Not sure if this is in-depth enough to qualify for the reciprocal in-depth review, if it is I'd prefer to hold onto it until I get the Chuul up.

[FishAreWet]

@Twitchleap, maximum jumping height was in 3.0 and removed in the transition.

[Hyudra]

Not really a critique on this, just a comment on the current non-speaking setup in general: Should we be allowing characters with wild empathy to understand them right from the get-go?

Makes sense. But I think that's more a feature of wild empathy than a thing that would need to be clarified as part of the mute monster bit.

Why are they using the same poison advancement table as the wyvern when the entire point of a wyvern is how unusually powerful their poison is?

Because Gorgondantess suggested to one or two other people that they use the poison advancement system, and it stuck. The Wyvern does get abilities at later levels that let them advance their poison considerably.

Still, it's my intent to offer reduced numbers for Con damage, so the Wyvern still would have excellent poison advancement for one of the most effective types of attribute damage.

Why only one category? It seems like they should be able to shoot web at anything, just not necasarily have it do much good.

It's a part of the original monster, and makes sense thematically. You only have so much web, and to entangle - as in literally tangle up with web - a colossal creature as a small spider stretches the suspension of belief.

Does making this check require an action or is it just something that gets done as part of whatever else?

I'll clarify.

If they're not entangled couldn't they just cut themselves loose?

Yes, but that takes an action, and denying an action to an opponent is still a ok effect for something that requires only a ranged touch attack. Plus, there's not necessarily a guarantee they'll cut through the strand on their first attempt (ok, it's likely, but still).

The way this reads is a spider will always pull a victim it is above off the ground, but that doesn't make any sense if, say the spider is 15' off the ground and 15 horizontal feet away from a victim and only pulls them 10'

True.

@ Enzyme: This is very mild.

@ Brood Mother: And this is very powerful. the spider will almost always be walking around with swarms of kiddies following them around which many monsters may not be equipped to handle. Not to mention the spider who buys 20 cows before going adventuring and bites all of them immediately before facing the BBEG.

So noted. I'll see about tweaking them and solving the cow problem.

@Tarsus Impaler: Does this automatically use both your claw attacks? can you choose whether you use one or both?

I thought it was pretty clearly stated ("a single secondary attack made as a full round action"), but I'll clarify if people are getting confused.

Does a character who fails their strength check to break free of the web take damage from both triggers?

Will clarify.

@ Pendulum: So they just keep swinging forever? Sticky webs attached to heavy spiders or unyielding rocks are not efficient machines.

Yeah, but getting into loss of momentum seemed like it would be a bit much for an already complicated ability.

@ Silent Skirr: Okay, so the guards won't here the spider hitting the guard at the gate. They'll just hear the guard getting hit. (Or hitting back if he has time.)

I'll clarify that there's no noise upon the guard getting hit. The rest, well, it makes no sense.

@ Weaver: So, could this be used together with pendulum swing to make one of those pendulum desk toys?

Yes, yes it could.

As far as I can tell, jump height is never capped by move speed. I've seen a few references to this sort of ability, but never in official publications and the actual jump skill says nothing of the sort.

I could've sworn I read the SRD not 3 months ago and read something about jump height being capped by move speed. I'll work something out.

This almost seems like it should work better when they CAN'T see you. The monster you can't find is often the scariest of all.

That's how it works. Reread?

...

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I'll do a critique as soon as your Chuul is done.

[Tacitus]

On the jumping thing, you may have read that distance traveled in a single round cannot exceed your movement speed, else you must spend a move action in the following round to complete your jump, mystically hanging in the air until your turn comes around again.

[Hyudra]

Spider Changes, February 19, 2011:

• Con based poison now deals less poison damage, as it's the best stat to target. This means spider doesn't outclass Wyvern, and there's more of a choice between the stats.
• Clarified that escaping webs requires a standard action.
• Clarified the 'lift the foe off the ground' effect of Reel in, for spiders above the foe.
• Enzyme tweaked, so it now imposes Wis or Cha penalties due to the pain/scarring.
• Brood Mother tweaked. It's now a 1/hour ability, and I slowed the rate of gaining additional swarms, clarified it only deals the damage once, and qualified that only enemies worthy of granting CR will allow for swarm creation.
• Clarified the detail on Razor Tangle, where RAW, they took damage twice for failing a strength check to free themselves.
• Clarified/buffed Silent Skirr, adding that attacking, using abilities and foes being attacked by the spider makes no noise.
• Twitchleap changed. Now halves DCs for jump checks, and gives the Spider bonus movement for the purposes of counting how far Jump carries her in a given turn.
• Clarified Hunter's Bite, stressing that the Spider gets the unconfirmed crit against any foe that has failed an initial save against poison and is awaiting secondary damage, and that it applies only if the poison was applied by a previous bite attack or another source (so you can't deliver poison and then get a potential crit in the same bite. Shouldn't need to be said, given the order of such things, but clarified anyways).
• Weaver now grants a way around freedom of movement. Such foes still get a bonus to AC vs. the ranged touch attack of web/strand and a bonus to escape artist.
• Arachnid's Bite at 11th level now grants a way around poison immunity, poison resistance.

I'll do my promised critiques for those that've done in depth critiques tomorrow.

[FishAreWet]

• Con based poison now deals less poison damage, as it's the best stat to target. This means spider doesn't outclass Wyvern, and there's more of a choice between the stats.
• Clarified that escaping webs requires a standard action.
• Clarified the 'lift the foe off the ground' effect of Reel in, for spiders above the foe.
• Enzyme tweaked, so it now imposes Wis or Cha penalties due to the pain/scarring.
• Brood Mother tweaked. It's now a 1/hour ability, and I slowed the rate of gaining additional swarms, clarified it only deals the damage once, and qualified that only enemies worthy of granting CR will allow for swarm creation.
• Clarified the detail on Razor Tangle, where RAW, they took damage twice for failing a strength check to free themselves.
• Clarified/buffed Silent Skirr, adding that attacking, using abilities and foes being attacked by the spider makes no noise.
• Twitchleap changed. Now halves DCs for jump checks, and gives the Spider bonus movement for the purposes of counting how far Jump carries her in a given turn.
• Clarified Hunter's Bite, stressing that the Spider gets the unconfirmed crit against any foe that has failed an initial save against poison and is awaiting secondary damage, and that it applies only if the poison was applied by a previous bite attack or another source (so you can't deliver poison and then get a potential crit in the same bite. Shouldn't need to be said, given the order of such things, but clarified anyways).
• Weaver now grants a way around freedom of movement. Such foes still get a bonus to AC vs. the ranged touch attack of web/strand and a bonus to escape artist.
• Arachnid's Bite at 11th level now grants a way around poison immunity, poison resistance.

1. Level 18 of Con damage is a typo. Meant to be 2d6, right?
2. Roger
3. Roger
4. Still weak compared to Brood Mother, but a passable ability
5. "You may never have HD/4 many Swarms under your control at one time. If more swarms are created then you lose control of the old ones." I think that is a more elegant way to avoid Swarm armies. And it allows the Spider to keep pulling Swarms out of creatures, a neat ability, with no intention of creating Swarm armies. I stand by that either it shouldn't require Secondary or Secondary should be moved. Note my Summon Swarm vs Animate Dead analogy.
6. Roger
7. I like this ability, good change.
8. Roger.
9. Roger
10. Good! This is always an issue with monster classes.
11. And it's the one almost everyone will take. Glad this was added.

[Hyudra]

• "You may never have HD/4 many Swarms under your control at one time. If more swarms are created then you lose control of the old ones." I think that is a more elegant way to avoid Swarm armies. And it allows the Spider to keep pulling Swarms out of creatures, a neat ability, with no intention of creating Swarm armies. I stand by that either it shouldn't require Secondary or Secondary should be moved. Note my Summon Swarm vs Animate Dead analogy.

It should be stressed that you don't have control over the swarms, technically. I'll add the cap, instead.

• And it's the one almost everyone will take. Glad this was added.

Out of curiosity, what if it was (to paraphrase):
Hunter's Mandibles: Attacks on poisoned enemies are unconfirmed crits.
Lurker's Mandibles: Attacks on entangled foes are confirmed crits.

Just to make the bite vs. the entangled more tempting?

In any event:

Spider Changes, February 19, 2011 (#2):

• Poison damage progression for the con type damage changed. I aimed for it to be just one step behind the Str/Dex damage (or 3HD behind in terms of progression rate), but I'd missed the fact that it jumps just a bit midway through. Simultaneously fixed a typo where I had 1d6 con damage at 18HD instead of 1d8 (it now does 2d6/2d6 con damage at 18)
• Set a cap of 1 swarm per 4HD on the Brood Mother ability. Changed the duration limit to 1 hour per 5HD.

[FishAreWet]

The comment about everyone taking it was meant to be overcoming Poison Immunity. I think the choice between Poison/Entanged unconfirmed criticals is fair.

[Hyudra]

Ah. Well, if you read the ability Arachnid's Bite, you'd see that everyone does get it. You just pick the other bonus effect from the list.

[FishAreWet]

You caught me, I didn't go reread it. I only read your changelog. I think you did a great job with this creature. I thought it was a boring concept but you really brought some creative concepts to the table and I think this class would be a blast to play.

[Hyudra]

You caught me, I didn't go reread it. I only read your changelog. I think you did a great job with this creature. I thought it was a boring concept but you really brought some creative concepts to the table and I think this class would be a blast to play.

Thank you. It's what I aim for - I strive for monsters that I would want to play for a complete campaign arc or longer.

Which makes me feel like I failed somewhere along the line with Mephit, Ogre and Annis Hag (and to a lesser extent, Kuo-Toa). I don't feel like I'd necessarily jump at the chance to play a game with those, so I kind of want to go back to them at some point.

[Saidoro]

Chuul

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Hit Dice: d8

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Class Features
1st	+0	+2	+0	+2	Chuul Body, Improved Grab, Grim Origin, +1 str
2nd	+1	+3	+0	+3	Tentacles, Constrict, +1 con, +1 origin
3rd	+2	+3	+1	+3	Toxic, Grim Advancement I, +1 str
4th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Entangling Tentacles, Human shield, +1 con, +1 origin
5th	+3	+4	+1	+4	Growth, Grim Advancement II, +1 str
6th	+4	+5	+2	+5	Throw, +1 con, +1 origin
7th	+5	+5	+2	+5	Paralytic Tentacles, Grim Perfection, +1 str

Skills Points at first Level: (2+Intelligence Modifier) x 4
Skills Points at Each Level: (2+Intelligence Modifier)
Class Skills: The chuul’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Hide (Dex), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Spot (Wis) and Swim (Str).

Proficiencies: The chuul gains proficiency with its natural weapons.

Chuul Class Features: The following are the Class Features of the chuul.

Chuul Body: The chuul loses all other racial traits and acquires aberration traits, giving it darkvision 60 ft. Chuuls start as medium creatures with a base land speed of 30 ft and a base swim speed of 20 ft. Chuuls have 2 primary natural claw attacks dealing 1d8+str damage. Chuuls get a natural armor bonus equal to their constitution modifier. Chuuls have the aquatic subtype and the amphibious special quality, allowing it to survive equally well on land or in the water.

Improved Grab: When a chuul hits with a claw attack they may attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking attacks of opportunity.

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If a creature with this special attack hits with a melee weapon (usually a claw or bite attack), it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. No initial touch attack is required.

Unless otherwise noted, improved grab works only against opponents at least one size category smaller than the creature. The creature has the option to conduct the grapple normally, or simply use the part of its body it used in the improved grab to hold the opponent. If it chooses to do the latter, it takes a -20 penalty on grapple checks, but is not considered grappled itself; the creature does not lose its Dexterity bonus to AC, still threatens an area, and can use its remaining attacks against other opponents.

A successful hold does not deal any extra damage unless the creature also has the constrict special attack. If the creature does not constrict, each successful grapple check it makes during successive rounds automatically deals the damage indicated for the attack that established the hold. Otherwise, it deals constriction damage as well (the amount is given in the creature’s descriptive text).

When a creature gets a hold after an improved grab attack, it pulls the opponent into its space. This act does not provoke attacks of opportunity. It can even move (possibly carrying away the opponent), provided it can drag the opponent’s weight.

Grim Origin: Chuuls are not a single race, and there are many ways they can come about. A chuul selects a single origin at first level and gains its benefits.

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Dweller of Primordial Seas: Chuuls of this origin come from another time or another place, somewhere where the rules of reality are somewhat different than those of our world. The chuul may warp the space making up its own form allowing it to manifest expansion and compression as psi-like abilities once per day per 2 HD(drawing from a common pool of uses). Unlike normal the chuul may choose not to have these abilities change its weight, only its volume. Additionally the chuul may choose to ignore the frail power of the gods, gaining spell resistance 10+HD against divine spells only. Chuuls with this background get attribute bonuses to their charisma and have the knowledge(the planes) skill added to their skill list.

Twisted Cultist: Chuuls of this origin have pledged their service to a dark master from beyond the world and have been twisted into a new form to better serve their master's goals. The chuul may choose 2 1st level spells from the cleric spell list or from the chaos, death, destruction or evil domains to use as spell-like abilities once per day per 2 HD(drawing from a common pool of uses). Also, a chuul who multiclasses into cleric can count his chuul levels 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, a chuul 3 who took 1 level of cleric could choose to have CL 4, get 1 new 1st, 2nd, and 0th level spell slot per day. He wouldn't get the spell knowns and spell slots of a cleric 3 however. He would get the turn or rebuke undead ability, but chuul levels wouldn't count for it. If a chuul selected a spell like ability from a certain domain and later multiclasses into cleric they must take that domain as one of their chosen domains. Chuuls of this origin get attribute bonuses to wisdom and have the knowledge(religion) skill added to their skill list.

Experiment Gone Awry: Chuuls of this origin are either the creations of some sort of magic user or the descendants of such. These chuuls are able to rage as a barbarian of their level, and if they later take levels in barbarian their chuul levels and barbarian levels stack for the purposes of gaining rage or abilities that directly modify rage(such as greater rage). The chuul has also built up an amount of resistance to the arcane, gaining spell resistance 10+hd against arcane spells. This sort of chuul gets 4+int skill points per level instead of 2+int. Chuuls of this origin get attribute bonuses to strength and have climb, handle animal, intimidate, jump, and survival added to their class skill list.

Attribute bonus: The chuul gets +1 to strength at every odd class level and +1 to con at every even level. Additionally, it gets +1 to one other attribute score at every even class level, what score is increased is determined by the chuul's Grim Origin.

Constrict: Beginning at second level the chuul deals 2d6+str damage with any successful grapple check. The chuul cannot deal constrict damage to a foe on the round they initiate a grapple with that foe.

Tentacles: Starting at second level the chuul can transfer grabbed victims from its claws to its tentacles as a move action. The tentacles grapple with the same strength as the claws but deal no damage and cannot constrict. The chuul may choose to count as not grappled by a creature held in its tentacles by taking a -10 to its grapple checks(instead of the -20 allowed by improved grab). Victims held in the tentacles take 1d6+½str damage each round from the chuul's mandibles.

Toxic: At third level the chuul becomes immune to poison. Also, it develops a number of internal venom sacs equal to its constitution modifier each of which may hold a single dose of poison. The chuul may store a single dose of venom in one of these sacs by drinking it as a standard action and may then chose to dribble that poison onto any creature held in its tentacles as a swift action.
At 5 HD the chuul may choose to coat one of its claws in venom as a move action.
At 7 HD coating a claw in venom becomes a swift action and dribbling poison onto a held creature is a free action only usable once per round.

Grim Advancement I: At third level the chuul's body or mind changes, granting it more power. The chuul may select a single ability from the below list for which it qualifies.

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Horrid Spines: The chuul gains a set of organic armor spikes that deal damage as a creature one size category larger (1d6 damage for a medium chuul). Additionally, the chuul can choose to launch its spikes at those around it as a standard action, dealing 1d6 damage per 2 HD to each creature within 20 ft of the chuul. Using this second ability causes the chuul to lose its spikes until they are regrown 1 hour later.
At 5 HD the chuul gains the ability to apply a dose of poison stored in one of its venom sacs to its spines as a move action. A poison so applied will affect the next target struck by the armor spikes or all targets struck if the chuul launches its spines.

Lurking Predator: A chuul with this ability is considered to have concealment (20% miss chance) whenever at least half of its body is submerged in liquid. Additionally, when fully submerged it gains total concealment against any creature not also fully submerged (and it still gains concealment against those who are). Finally, the chuul adds 1d8 damage of the same sort their attack normally deals to all attacks against flat footed enemies. This increases by 1d8 at 10 HD and every 7 HD thereafter.

Regenerative Fury: (Requires Experiment Gone Awry) When a chuul with this ability rages any hitpoints gained from their increased constitution modifier are treated as temporary hitpoints and are lost before other hitpoints. Additionally, the chuul regains a number of hitpoints each round it is raging equal to half its HD. If it is fully healed it instead gains that many temporary hitpoints up to a maximum of 2*its HD(these stack with other sources of temporary hitpoints). Finally, the chuul gains the ability to rage an additional time per day.

Otherworldly Preacher: (Requires Twisted Cultist) A chuul with this ability gains a number of free ranks in diplomacy equal to its level in the chuul class(this does not scale after it is gained) and has diplomacy added to its class skill list. Additionally, the chuul may use their diplomacy modifier in the place of their intimidate modifier at any time.

One Among Many: (Requires Dweller of Primordial Seas) A chuul with this ability is not so much a singular creature as it is the mouthpiece of millions of identical siblings in another plane. Once per day for every three HD it has, the chuul may allow its siblings to reach through it as a swift action, granting the chuul 2 additional claw attacks for one round. Additionally, the chuul never loses levels for being brought back from the dead and can always be brought back even if its soul was trapped/consumed/destroyed.

Entangling Tentacles: At fourth level the chuul's toxic tentacles begin to slow its victims. Each round a creature held in the chuul's tentacles must make a fortitude save vs poison with a save DC of 10+½HD+Con modifier or be entangled for 6 rounds.

Human Shield: Beginning at fourth level the chuul can move opponents in such a way as to catch blows as an immediate action. When a creature is grappled by the chuul the chuul may attempt to move that creature between it and the first attack it was aware of made against it in a round. To do so the chuul must make an opposed grapple check with the creature, if it succeeds the grappled creature takes the full affects of the attack instead of the chuul. The grapple check made as part of this ability does not deal constrict damage if successful.

Growth: At fifth level the chuul grows to large size(long). Its reach, grapple modifiers, natural attack damage and skills change accordingly, but it doesn't gain any ability score bonuses or penalties.

Grim Advancement II: At fifth level the chuul's changes continue, further modifying what it is. The chuul may select a single ability from the below list or from the Grim Advancement I list for which it qualifies.

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Grasping Tentacles: The chuul gains a tentacles secondary natural attack dealing 1d8+½str modifier bludgeoning damage for a large creature. The chuul may use improved grab with this attack, and creatures so grabbed are automatically held by the chuul's tentacles. Creatures held in the chuul's tentacles automatically take damage equal to the damage dealt from this attack every round in addition to other effects.

Gather the Choir: (Requires Twisted Cultist) The chuul gains the ability to rebuke aberrations in the same manner as an evil cleric rebukes undead. The chuul's effective cleric level is equal to its HD.

Madness: (Requires Dweller of Primordial Seas) The chuul gains the ability to force their own notions of how the world works upon those around them. As a move action usable once per day per three HD it possesses the chuul can make any creature within 30 ft of the chuul make a will save DC 10+½HD+cha modifier or become confused for 1d4 rounds. Additionally, the chuul gains the ability to inoculate others against insanity. As an action requiring 1 minute of work, which the chuul must be adjacent to the target to perform, the chuul can make the target immune to fear effects and the confused condition for 24 hours.

Unusual Enhancement: (Requires Experiment Gone Awry) This chuul had many animals go into its creation, an apparently one of them may have been part dragon. The chuul gains a breath weapon usable once every 1d8 rounds dealing 1d6 energy damage in either a 60 ft line or a 30 ft cone(selected when ability is gained). When this ability is gained the chuul selects either fire, cold, acid or fire, their breath weapon deals damage of that type and they gain resistance equal to their HD to damage of that type. The reflex save DC to take half damage from this attack is equal to 10+½HD+Con modifier. Additionally, if the chuul chooses to make this breath attack as a full-round action instead of a standard action they may vaporize a single dose of poison from one of their venom sacs and apply it to any targets who fail their reflex save against the breath attack.

Throw: Starting at sixth level the chuul may use creatures it is grappling as throwing weapons with a range increment of 5 ft + 5 ft per size category they are smaller than the chuul. Using this ability requires an opposed grapple check against the grappled creature on which the chuul gets a +5 bonus followed by a ranged attack roll against whatever the chuul wants to throw its victim at(the chuul may choose to throw its target at the ground or another inanimate object). No grapple check must be made against a creature the chuul does not count as grappled by. Medium creatures deal 2d6 base damage plus any effects that are applied to creatures it strikes with any of its natural attacks or to creatures that strike it with natural attacks( for example, a wight would apply level drain to a creature it collided with while a creature under the effect of fire shield would deal an additional 1d6 fire damage). Both the thrown creature and the struck creature take damage and apply damage from any effects they may possess to the other creature. The thrown creature still takes damage on a miss from striking the ground. At the DM's discretion additional damage may be dealt based on specific combinations of creatures (throwing a fire elemental at a water elemental will not end well for either.) The chuul may do this once per round for each claw attack they possess and using this ability does not use up the chuul's claw attack for the round.

Paralytic Tentacles: At seventh level the chuul's toxic tentacles freeze its victims in place. Each round a creature held in the chuul's tentacles must make a fortitude save vs poison with a save DC of 10+½HD+Con modifier or be paralyzed for HD/2 rounds. This ability replaces entangling tentacles, but the chuul may choose to have their victim be entangled instead of paralyzed on a failed save.

Grim Perfection: At seventh level the changes occurring in the chuul's body reach completion. The chuul selects a single ability from the below list or a single ability from the grim advancement list that they qualify for.

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Devour Faith: (Requires Dweller of Primordial Seas) The chuul gains the ability to cast a version of greater dispel magic as a swift action that only affects divine spells. This can be used once per day per four HD. Additionally, when the chuul is holding a divine spellcaster in its tentacles, that caster loses prepared divine spells or spell slots with a total number of spell levels equal to the chuul's HD at the beginning of each round in addition to other affects. The divine caster may choose which spells it loses to the chuul. A character held in the chuul's tentacles for 6 or more rounds must make a will save DC 10+½hd+cha modifier or have its alignment change to true neutral for 24 hours. Whenever the chuul dispels or devours a spell with this ability it is healed 1 hit point per spell level.
At 13 HD the chuul may force a divine caster held in its tentacles to make a will save DC 10+½hd+cha modifier or have the chuul decide which of its spells are devoured instead of deciding itself.
At 19 HD the chuul heals 2 hit points per spell level consumed instead of 1.

Avatar: (Requires Twisted Cultist) The chuul is granted further power by their patron, moving them closer to their dark lord in body and mind. The chuul gains 2 secondary tentacle attacks dealing 1d6 damage for a large creature with a reach of 10 ft. Any creature struck by one of the chuul's natural attacks must make a will save DC 10+½HD+wis modifier or be shaken for 1d4+2 rounds. This stacks with fear effects normally, including itself, but no creature may be affected by this ability more than once per round by any given chuul. Additionally, the chuul may choose to be treated as an outsider native to the far realms instead of an aberration when it is advantageous to do so.
At 13 HD the fear imposed by this ability is even able to affect creatures that would normally be immune to fear, though they get a +4 to their saving throw and cannot be reduced to panicking.
At 19 HD the condition imposed by this ability is frightened rather than shaken, creatures who succeed on their saving throw are still shaken, but the shaken condition imposed on a successful save does not stack with other fear effects.

Secondary Traits: (Requires Experiment Gone Awry) A vast number of creatures went into the chuul's creation, and the features of those creatures now becomes evident. One of the chuul's claws grows to monstrous size, dealing damage as though the chuul was one size category larger and is treated as a two-handed weapon for the purposes of calculating damage bonuses. Additionally, the chuul gains the ability to sense the electric fields surrounding living creatures, giving it blindsense 30' capable of detecting living beings only. Finally, the chuul can change the color of its skin to blend in with the background, giving it a racial bonus to hide checks equal to half its HD.
At 13 HD the chuul's blindsense increases in range to 60' and it gains blindsight 30'. Also, the chuul's large claw now deals damage as though it were an additional size category larger.
At 19 HD any creature struck by the chuul's larger claw must make a fortitude save DC 10+½HD+str modifier or be dazed for one round. Additionally, the chuul's bonus to hide checks increases to its HD and it gains the ability to hide in plain sight.

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Comments
Chuulthulhu devours 1d3 investigators divine spells per round.
Anyway, the chuul: a bizarre aquatic creature of unexplained origin. Grim origin takes that last bit and runs with it, constrict improved grab and the tentacles stuff give abilities from the base monster, toxic takes the chuul's poison immunity and expands it into a full ability and everything else is unrelated to the base monster but flavorfully fitting(I hope.)
If you have any ideas for grim origins/advancements/perfections please share them, I'm not necessarily going to stick to having one ability per origin per level and will likely add more later, this is just what I have so far.

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Changelog
February 26

• changed Lobster-Squid-Fish-Man body to Chuul Body.
• reworded stat bonuses in table.
• Added no first round constrict clause.
• Changed .5s to ½s.
• Added the word modifier in lots of places.
• Added bonus damage to Lurking Predator.
• Reworked One among many's extra attacks.
• Madness changed from constant effect to move action effect.
• Added Secondary Traits

March 7

• Added Damage type to Lurking Predator
• Slight reword to One among many
• Added use limit to madness
• Reduced Secondary traits stun to 1 round

March 8

• Secondary traits now requires Experiment gone awry

March 20

• Secondary traits now dazes, not stuns.

March 30

• Fixed spelling error in grim origin

April 4

• Devour faith changed around, it now devours a number of spell levels equal to the chuul's HD(was 1d3 spells), has a uses per day limit on the dispel magic, and only heals 1 HP per spell level.
• Made Devour faith scale.
• Reduced condition imposed by Avatar to shaken.
• Made Avatar scale.
• Reduced blindsight from Secondary traits blindsense.
• Removed dazing from secondary traits.
• reduced initial damage boost to big claw in secondary traits.
• Made secondary traits scale.

[Frog Dragon]

I have now remade both the Mezzoloth and the Nycaloth, hopefully fulfilling the standards of this project. Their SLA:s have been reduced, and both have gained a unique set of abilities, Fiendish Fury for the Mezzoloth, and Cursed Wounds for the Nycaloth. The Nycaloth has been made more Con-dependent, and now gains the largest adjustment to that score. The Mezzoloth mostly buffs itself, while the Nycaloth casually applies debuffs to its targets while brutally murdering them with whatever weapons it has at hand, or failing that, with its claws.
I went with delicious dragonborn copypasta for the flight. Anyway, PEACH!

[Gorgondantess]

Medusa:
Just as a note: the best multiclassing option for every single monster without casting in this thread is an initiating class (pretty much- maybe something like ardent for the smaller ones). As such, I don't think it would be imbalancing to make medusa stances separate from ToB stances and able to use them simultaneously. I suppose Coil sortof takes care of that, though... but then Coil is a little powerful! Dual Stances is a capstone option, and you're granting it amongst many, many other abilities. Though I suppose you're not really granting the equivalent of 8th level stances... Just something to consider, anyways.
Viper's Fangs: Ouch. Talk about crippling your opponents to paralysis with ability score damage stacking.
Also, Darting Serpent... does it really need the full attack option? That makes the Medusa about as good a dip as lion totem barbarian, losing race notwithstanding.
Ouroboros Coils: This would be really, really cool combined with swaying cobra. Sadly, by the time you get Coils, it's quite outdated.
Cthonic Eye: It's spelled "petrification". No A. Unless it's some funky Canadian spelling, eh. Also, I don't think it would be out of line to simply make the petrification permanent at 16 HD.
Stalking Serpent: what's one step? Like a keen enchantment or by one point?
Also... you do realize that stances can be taken on any time? Even out of combat? So you activate stalking serpent, wait a year, then attack anything not immune to critical hits and kill them instantly.
Snake in the grass: I think a better wording would be, "when the medusa is spotted, she gains concealment for 1 round against that opponent." Or something like that.
Undulating Defense, Cthonic Flash, Cold Blooded, Strangle... looks good!
White Fangs Striking: does it stack with snake nest? For a creature that should have about a, eh, +7 bonus by that time, seems a little excessive. "Piercing weapon": does that include the snakes? If so, might want to reword it to "attack that deals piercing damage". Otherwise looks good.
Force Gaze... okay, the class is already powerful enough, I don't think you need the trickery option.

Otherwise, looking good. Overall needs some tweaking but looks like a fun and potent class.

[Hyudra]

Medusa:
Just as a note: the best multiclassing option for every single monster without casting in this thread is an initiating class (pretty much- maybe something like ardent for the smaller ones). As such, I don't think it would be imbalancing to make medusa stances separate from ToB stances and able to use them simultaneously.

Hrmm.

I suppose Coil sortof takes care of that, though... but then Coil is a little powerful! Dual Stances is a capstone option, and you're granting it amongst many, many other abilities. Though I suppose you're not really granting the equivalent of 8th level stances... Just something to consider, anyways.

I will consider it.

Viper's Fangs: Ouch. Talk about crippling your opponents to paralysis with ability score damage stacking.

Yeah. I realize, now that I've been informed that poison stacks (beyond just doing initial damage several times over) that this is a bit much.

Also, Darting Serpent... does it really need the full attack option? That makes the Medusa about as good a dip as lion totem barbarian, losing race notwithstanding.

I dunno about that. I mean, yeah, you're getting potential full attacks on a charge, but that's with a fairly stringent prerequisite - At least 1 turn spent in the stance prior to the charge, without getting hit.

Cthonic Eye: It's spelled "petrification". No A. Unless it's some funky Canadian spelling, eh. Also, I don't think it would be out of line to simply make the petrification permanent at 16 HD.

Any search for 'petrification', including dictionary and wiki examples, redirect to a page/definition titled Petrifaction. In lists of the synonymous meanings of the terms, petrifaction is first.

Yes, I can give it a permanent petrify.

[Stalking Serpent: what's one step? Like a keen enchantment or by one point?

Thought it was evident. Wanted to avoid getting into those horrible, overcomplex, overwrought discussions that come up whenever one talks about critical multipliers and critical threat ranges.

Also... you do realize that stances can be taken on any time? Even out of combat? So you activate stalking serpent, wait a year, then attack anything not immune to critical hits and kill them instantly.

Ah, but I did stress, under Slither/Stride, that "Adopting a Serpentine Stance (Slither/Stride stances count as Serpentine Stances for the purposes of these rules of use) requires a swift action, performed after initiative rolls have been made. The stance has no duration, beyond the fact that it ends when combat does. Only one stance may be maintained at a time."

Snake in the grass: I think a better wording would be, "when the medusa is spotted, she gains concealment for 1 round against that opponent." Or something like that.

Ok.

White Fangs Striking: does it stack with snake nest? For a creature that should have about a, eh, +7 bonus by that time, seems a little excessive. "Piercing weapon": does that include the snakes? If so, might want to reword it to "attack that deals piercing damage". Otherwise looks good.

I'll tone it down and reword it.

Force Gaze... okay, the class is already powerful enough, I don't think you need the trickery option.

So noted.

Will start on the promised critiques for classes now (had to go out to dinner for work, sorry it's delayed).

Lemme see, doing...

• Chuul for Saidoro's critique of Monstrous Spider. Edit: Done!
• Senor Cactus for Gorgon's critique of Medusa/others - With Gorgondantess' permission, putting this off til later.
• Volt's creature (mushroom?) for Volt's critique of Magmin.

Will either do a fresh post or edit this post if nobody's responded by the time I'm done, so stay tuned either way.

[Gorgondantess]

I dunno about that. I mean, yeah, you're getting potential full attacks on a charge, but that's with a fairly stringent prerequisite - At least 1 turn spent in the stance prior to the charge, without getting hit.

Ah. Didn't see the "requires initiative to be rolled" thing.

Any search for 'petrification', including dictionary and wiki examples, redirect to a page/definition titled Petrifaction. In lists of the synonymous meanings of the terms, petrifaction is first.

...Huh. That's... odd.

Thought it was evident. Wanted to avoid getting into those horrible, overcomplex, overwrought discussions that come up whenever one talks about critical multipliers and critical threat ranges.

Two possibilities: doubled or increased by one. Each one has precedent in the rules; however, doubling is far more common, so one "step" could be construed as doubling.

Ah, but I did stress, under Slither/Stride, that "Adopting a Serpentine Stance (Slither/Stride stances count as Serpentine Stances for the purposes of these rules of use) requires a swift action, performed after initiative rolls have been made. The stance has no duration, beyond the fact that it ends when combat does. Only one stance may be maintained at a time."

Ah! Didn't see that. That makes rising anaconda stance far, far less useful. And snake in the grass- hide checks are generally best made before initiative starts, not afterwards.
Beyond that, this would be somewhat cumbersome for multiclassing with ToB, especially when coils is taken into account, as ToB stances don't require initiative to be rolled. Beyond that, people who already know what stances are (like me) are liable to miss that little footnote. Usually when I take something that people generally know the effects of and can find the effects elsewhere and then make minor tweaks so that at first glance it would still be exactly the same as what they already know, causing them to thus glaze over it and miss those few words that make all the difference, I make it very, very clear. See: construct type on my golems.

Anyways, I'm actually going to tweak Senor Saguaro right now. Mainly just to make wording less cumbersome.

[Hyudra]

Chuul

• "Lobster-Squid-Fish-Man Body:" -> rename to Chuul body? Standardization!
• "Additionally the chuul may choose to ignore the frail power of the gods, gaining spell resistance 10+HD against divine spells only." -> "frail power of the gods" seems out of place. Also, a bit early to be gaining spell resistance.
• The attribute bonuses to wisdom need to be better clarified on the table, since the way it's shown, it implies it's the player's choice.
• Again, under experiment gone awry, feels a bit early to be getting SR (other creatures get it at 2nd level at the earliest.)
• The constrict bonus... That's a pretty sizable bonus. In fact, what it looks like you're doing is making That Damn Crab. That is, you've got an absolute grab/constrict machine. For example:
  
  Charlie the Chuul with Experiment Gone Awry origin attacks Nancy the Warlock, both level 2. Charlie's got a +6 attack bonus, and Nancy's got AC 16. Charlie makes a full attack against Nancy, Delivering two attacks, Charlie needs a 10+ to hit. Two 50% chances to hit.
  
  Assuming Charlie does land a hit (odds are in his favor), he deals 1d8+5 damage, makes a grapple check (+5 from Str bonus, so odds again liable to be in his favor against a typical humanoid) and deals 2d6+5 damage if successful. Charlie's got 7 average claw damage (two claws that can hit) and 12 average constrict damage. Nancy's liable to have 15hp.
  It's a bit too much.
• @Tentacles: Don't use .5Str It's hard to read and can be very much misinterpreted. Use 1/2 or ½. (The latter can be made by turning on numlock, holding alt, typing 1, 7, 1 on numpad, then releasing alt).
• Third level, armor spikes. Adding gravy to the grapple monstrosity. May be a bit much, but this issue should go away when you've got the rest of the grapple engine sorted out.
• @ lurking predator: I don't like a dependence on water. It's not necessarily that common (or consistently common) as terrain features go, and it tends to make for a creature that is fantastic in some environments and terrible in others. It's like favored enemy/favored terrain. You're only really special when your favored enemy/terrain isn't on the field.
• @ otherworldly preacher: 'this does not scale after it is gained' - don't do this. It forces players to procrastinate on gaining levels in the monster class until the latest possible time.
• @ one among many: Ok, so I've got the murderous claw/improved grapple/constrict machine in place. Now, in the battle against the BBEG, I can gain +3 claw attacks. This will make DMs throw heavy books at you.
• @ Entangling Tentacles: Entangled isn't the right condition for this, given the flavor text. Entangled tends to refer to an external impediment to movement. If you left goopy slime on them, that'd work, but a numbing poison, not so much.
• @ Human Shield: What type of action is this? Might want to make it an immediate action.
• @ Grasping tentacles: I get that you're making a grapple monster here, but I think it's a bit too much. Consider that you can, as written, full attack, deal a bonus 5 claw attacks and a tentacles attack. Each attack has damage combined with a chance to grab & constrict.
• @ Madness: Inoculation against insanity needs to be better defined, as it's pretty broad. This ability is one of those that'll bog down combat if you're not careful (and I fear you've not been careful). You're asking for a lot of will saves (assuming you go from 5th level to 20th, that's 185ish encounters, with most involving an enemy being in close proximity to the Chuul for 1-2 rounds. Let's say there's, on average, 1 enemy in range of the Chuul for 1.5 rounds per combat. That's 278ish will saves, 278 or so rolls on confusion table. Beyond that, you've got what amounts to a save or lose that doesn't require an action of the Chuul's part, so he's taking enemies out of combat without even trying. This is a problem.
• @ Throw: Too many words! You get into all these side examples (touch attacks, fire elemental vs. water elemental) that don't necessarily even apply. (I throw a ghoul at someone, they get paralyzed every time?)
• "No grapple check must be made if the chuul is grappling a creature that it does not count as grappled by." is awkwardly worded. Plus an overuse of the word 'grappled'.
• Arguably too much damage considering how easy it is to set up. I mean, consider:
  
  6th level Chuul against 6th level Warlock. Chuul has 22 Str and large size. Hits with a claw for 2d6+6 damage, gets an improved grapple check (+6 from Str, +4 from size, total of +10), liable to win. Warlock grappled, takes 2d6+6 damage from constrict.
  
  Next turn, Chuul throws victim. Grapple check (+15 bonus), constrict damage (2d6+6), throw Warlock at another enemy, dealing 2d6+6 damage to each.
  
  2 standard actions, and aside from just needing that one successful claw hit (not a horrible chance at happening), you've got a system that deals about 65 damage total, on average (52 to warlock, 13 to alternate victim), with a maximum of 90 total damage. Again, worth stressing, a sixth level foe has somewhere in the neighborhood of 45-50 hp.
• @ Paralytic Tentacles: Why the flat 6 round duration? Also, this is just icing on the OmgWtfGrapple cake.
• @ Devour Faith: What's this obsession people have with abilities that screw over divine casters? I mean, not complaining, per se, but I think there's three or four monsters on the unfinished list that do this sort of thing.
  
  The loss of prepared spells is a bit much, especially since it's costing the cleric his or her best spells.

Violet Fungus

• Violet body should be violet fungus body.
• First level sucks, I'm afraid. Doesn't give you anything interesting. Leaves you with d8 hp, two tentacle attacks, no speech.
• Organic Breakdown is thematic, but the benefit isn't going to come up that often. Once a level? Once every other level?
• Plant communication: see organic breakdown.
• The poison damage doesn't really scale that fantastically.
• Dire Tentacles isn't that thrilling as capstones go.
• Overall, kind of underwhelming. Doesn't sell a particular playstyle, feels distinctly underpowered for a 1st through 3rd level PC, and doesn't offer that much that's going to make you glad, at 15th level, that you picked Violet Fungus as a race.

[Frog Dragon]

Got off my ass and modified the black dragon. Responses to criticism in blue.

Black Dragon

• God, I really hate 20 level creatures.
• Level 1 feels a little too packed full of stuff. Consider stretching out some of those benefits over levels. I can't think of anything to drop to later levels. Being amphibious is pretty central to black dragon-ness, so I wouldn't want to delay that.
• SLAs aren't terribly interesting. You've already got arcane spells. Why not replace these SLAs with something more thematic and fitting? Dropped a couple of SLA:s, gave the Marsh Drake ability.
• Set a cap on flight speed. Done. Set it to 200ft/round, since that is the highest flight speed the MM black dragon can get. It also nicely caps at level 20.
• Lots of levels, you only get one spell, which can only be used once a day or so. This makes it a tad placid, and doesn't really drive home the draconic flavor.
• I can't tell what the Black Dragon is trying to be. I mean, this is kind of a problem I have with all dragons, but you've got a bonus to hide checks (roguish), spells (caster-ish), full BAB and tons of natural attacks (Fighter-ish), and it feels kind of schizophrenic as a result. I tried to accentuate the "ambush" flavor here, with Marsh Drake. It is kind of schizophrenic, yes, but I don't really know what to do about it.
• Toxic breath needs clarification. It doesn't mention it's poison until far too late, which makes it confusing on first read. It also eclipses and outclasses weakening breath. Clarified wording. Eclipsing Weakening Breath is kind of intentional, but the lower level ability does have the perk that it still works against many creatures that are immune to poison, being an ability penalty.
• Not sure I get or like the whole 'dragon can turn nauseated to sickened' bit. I myself thought it was a good way to drive home the flavor I was gunning for, while being a decently useful secondary ability.
• Impure Breath is kind of underwhelming as a capstone. I gave it a fairly substantial boost, making the condition last longer.

[Zemro]

Marrash:
Interesting monster.

Thanks, I've made almost all the changes, including the following to Double Bowfire:

• Disallowed the ability to stack with the splitting enchantment
• Specified Manyshot interaction (only adds a single arrow)
• Reduced benefit of strength to damage to half.
• Damage from the other arrow isn't multiplied on a critical hit.
• Effects that trigger on a critical hit only trigger once

But had a brief comment on one comment:

Double Bowfire: Ever seen that charop thing where the ranger fires something like 20 shots every round? Double it. With a single addition from manyshot, you're looking at 4 arrows as a standard action.

I'm not actually so sure about that, I went and did some research and here are my conclusions:

Spoiler

Show

Main Factors in getting ridiculous amounts of arrows per round:

• Shapechange Shenanigans

Barring UMD Shenanigans to receive, this isn't really a problem do to difficulty in obtaining. Technically you'd loose all the Marrash abilities if you polymorphed into something else, so that'd just really suck.[*]Splitting Weapon Enchantment[/list]
Essentially a much easier to use version of double bowfire, since it's just an enchantment rather then something requiring one to be a specific race, be flying, and give up two natural weapons.
However, I've just changed the ability so they don't stack, so it's not helping anymore.

• Island In Time

Gives an extra turn, once per encounter. However you can't take the Eternal Blade as a Marrash, and it wouldn't kick in until 20 anyway, where I'd be less worried about such shenanigans.

• Time Stands Still

As a 9th level maneuver, it'd necessitate 14 levels in Warblade just to receive a bonus round. At most this would be being used every other round, and won't kick in until 19th.

• Belt of Battle

Burns out the belt for that day, an extra full attack once per day isn't really something to worry about.

Conclusion:

By digging up builds for usable material, the best I could manage is as follows:

Marrash 5: 1 BAB, +1 Rapid Shot, +1 Haste.
Rapid Shot gives us a -2 penalty, but if we're getting a buff from the party Wizard that's a +1 attack bonus from haste. At most we're talking three attacks for six arrows, but two and four seems most typical.

Marrash 5/Barbarian 1: 2 BAB, +1 Rapid Shot, +1 Whirling Frenzy, +1 Haste.
Whirling Frenzy drops another -2 penalty, for a total of -4 to negate. We're looking at 4-5 attacks for 8-10 arrows. Damage-wise we're behind the two-hander, since it's much easier for him to gain damage (his attack stat is his damage stat, and power attack).

And that's kinda it, you get to add another two arrows as your BAB increases, and there's the once a day boost from a Belt of Battle. Largely it seems that by the class being it's race, it looses out a bit of craziness from race and polymorph stuffs. So, overall, we're looking at 14 arrows at 20th, barring game breaking or end game only shenanigans.

With the nerfs I've just added, it should work fine for now, keeping in mind it only fires two arrows with an attack roll. That's specific wording, it's not an extra arrow, it's just straight up two arrows, so it may help limit the craziness.

Anyway, I've made my case, if it's sufficiently refuted I suppose I'll head back to the chopping block, otherwise I think I've addressed all the problems raised so far.

Hopefully I'll get back into offering some comments on the new monsters sometime soon.

EDIT: Fixed some glaring spelling and formatting errors, apparently I'm a bit too tired to post properly...

[Gorgondantess]

Anyway, I've made my case, if it's sufficiently refuted I suppose I'll head back to the chopping block, otherwise I think I've addressed all the problems raised so far.

And then you tack on the spell girallon arms- or take a few levels in incarnum for that- and you double the bows, double the output, 16-20 arrows per round at level, eh, 10 or so.

[Zemro]

And then you tack on the spell girallon arms- or take a few levels in incarnum for that- and you double the bows, double the output, 16-20 arrows per round at level, eh, 10 or so.

Neither of those will help, as specified in the ability the Marrash must be holding the bow with his talons (feet) for the ability to work. Both girallon arms and the soulmelds add arms and claw attacks, insufficient for the function of this ability.

I can't actually think of any ability that adds extra talons to a character.

EDIT: Double bonus, the wording it specifies talons. So something would have to add feet with talon attacks.

[Gorgondantess]

Neither of those will help, as specified in the ability the Marrash must be holding the bow with his talons (feet) for the ability to work. Both girallon arms and the soulmelds add arms and claw attacks, insufficient for the function of this ability.

Blegh, sorry. Alright then, 'scool.

[DiBastet]

Ragewalker's updated here.

[Mystic Muse]

Maybe its just me, but the Treant looks a little weak. It has half BAB, No class skills, D8 hit dice, and no good saves.

[Hyudra]

Virtually everything that was submitted under Oslecamo's rule was underpowered or overpowered, or at the very least, problematic in some fashion. We're well aware that this problem exists, and are taking slow and steady steps to remedy it.

[Mystic Muse]

Virtually everything that was submitted under Oslecamo's rule was underpowered or overpowered, or at the very least, problematic in some fashion. We're well aware that this problem exists, and are taking slow and steady steps to remedy it.

Maybe it would be more complex and take longer than I suspect, but Shouldn't we remove problematic material from the list of finished monsters?

[Hyudra]

Maybe it would be more complex and take longer than I suspect, but Shouldn't we remove problematic material from the list of finished monsters?

I'm of two minds there:

1. Yes, we should.
2. But there's a few inherent issues with that.
   
   • For one thing, there are people out there playing with those monsters. While I think the creation process and the slow but steady steps for replacing one monster with an updated version should give people time to either bookmark a link to or save the old material, abruptly removing a third of the monsters on the list would inconvenience a lot of people.
   • Another issue is that, well, where do we draw the line? Pretty much everything before Gorgondantess took over was flawed in some fashion. A few things after he took over are flawed too, because of the various shifts in how things were done (such as the introduction of the nomination/endorsement system), and a fair bit of crap getting past the radar as a consequence. It could be said that everything before mid-2010 is in need of a revision of some sort, be it minor or major.
   • And ultimately, we'd be taking a lot of stuff off the 'done' list and shortening what we've got to a rather truncated list. This would be a kick in the pants to quite a few people who put in a fair effort, and at the rate we're clearing monsters (~3 a week) it would be a long time before we bounced back.

So I'm personally of the opinion (and I welcome other people to comment on the subject or disagree with me) that the best method would be to keep it as is, and just allow for revised monster classes to be completed and posted, if their forerunners are deemed subpar.