Community Based Monster Classes VI

[Hyudra]

The Medusa has to be one of my favorite monsters. I'm surprised it took this long for it to be done.

For the pic, I like the second and third of the list the best.

The Medusa was one of the first monsters completed (Third, I think), but as with much/most of Oslecamo's work, it was badly in need of updating to make it more balanced & more fun to play. I'm hoping my stab at it hits the mark.

[radmelon]

I can tell you now it looks exceedingly fun to play.

[ScionoftheVoid]

The Medusa looks incredible, I can only find one thing obviosuly in need of fixing. The Snake Nest ability should specify they need to qualify for the bonus feat unless it is Weapon Finesse, since bonus feats do not need to be qualified for by default. The suffocation effect seems a bit powerful, but not so much so that I would say it is wrong. In any case, your high standard of work continues as always, Hyudra.

[Saidoro]

A few small quibbles with medusa

• Serpentine stance III says it comes at third level instead of fifth
• The feint option of force gaze uses a skill check (which scales with HD) opposed by a will save (which scales with 1/2 HD at best) The gorgon will almost always be winning these contests and will usually be getting a sizable bonus out of it, this seems a bit much.
• Medusa's kiss seems like it should kick in earlier than 7th level

[Hyudra]

Thanks Saidoro, Scion.

February 10th, 2011 changes to Medusa:

• Fixed Serpentine Stance III, where it said it was gained at third level instead of fifth.
• Changed the feint option of Force Gaze so the victim uses their choice of sense motive or will save.
• Stressed that the bonus feat that you get in Snake Nest needs to be qualified for, if you're not getting Weapon Finesse.

Medusa's Kiss is okay where it is, I think. It should leave the Medusa being very careful about how she lays down her Chthonic Flash, and it comes at the same time you're getting the stronger AoE, so your allies can gauge whether they want to risk having to make that reflex save to skip through the area, knowing you can fix them. Also, the ability has a root in lore as a magical power that not every Medusa has, so sticking it at the end as a capstone makes it sufficiently rare.

Feb 10, 2011 changes to Troll:

• Rend now only has a 50% chance of working if you use Furor, so there's a choice to be made in declaring your use of Furor.
• Tumescent Recovery no longer grants healing each time you take indirect damage (indirect damage was hard to calculate and the overall effect was complicated) but now lets you force rerolls on all damage taken for the duration.
• Violent Onslaught now has a 'rage mode', where a troll brought to low health, or a troll that offs an enemy, can use the ability again, with a small bonus.

Edit: I must admit I'm sort of stuck on the Storm Giant. Not only is it a much higher level than I'm typically comfortable doing (I prefer CR 4-8 creatures), but it's more or less a hybrid role. I'm going on a schpiel here, so bear with me.

For those that don't know, hybrid is when you're fulfilling two roles at once. The Storm Giant is, in the creature entry, a brute force fighter who is also a blaster... someone who deals damage with spells or spell like abilities. Hybrid is really hard to design right, and you'll find this is the case in D&D and any other games you find classes, roles or powersets. Why have someone who can do two things fairly well when you can have another person who does one thing really well? This is stressed in the Storm Giant's case because the two things he's doing are just different ways of doing the same thing: dealing damage. So there's not necessarily versatility there. There's a few ways you can deal with bringing hybrid classes up to par:

• You can make the creature as good as class X at class X's role and as good as class Y at class Y's role, but you're balanced in part by not being able to do both X or Y at the same time. This creates an issue where you risk overshadowing X or Y, and you have to find a way to keep those classes relevant without falling back into the trap of 'why be mediocre at two things when you could be fantastic at one?'. This is hard to set up unless you're in a position to balance all classes at the same time (like, if you're designing a game from the ground up) and notoriously hard to balance: I can't think of a case in 3.5 where it was handled well (Maybe Beguiler?). The 3.5 Druid is a case of a class where this approach was taken and handled poorly.
  
  .
• You can make a class less than fantastic at X and Y, but capable of doing X and Y at the same time. If you're a melee/healer class, then you're healing at the very same time you're swinging your hammer into faces. This is actually a really good option, but it's a little overused and tends to dilute the flavor and impact of doing X or Y when you're doing XY all the time. The 3.5 Duskblade is one example of this type of hybrid done fairly well. The 3.5 Hexblade is an example of this type of hybrid done poorly.
  
  .
• You can make the class less powerful than X or Y in their individual roles, but make the interaction between X and Y worthwhile. This is what I tried to do with Storm Giant. By stomping on people, you set them up to make your blasting more effective, and by blasting people you add effect to your punches. As to the merits & flaws in this, I'll get to that later, when I start talking specifically about the issues I'm facing with the Storm Giant.

Now, here's another complicating point: Blasting, by and large, sucks. It's basically Evocation, and Evocation is the worst school of magic. Why? It's about dealing damage and damage dealing is one of the most inefficient ways to end fights in 3.5. That's why the most effective characters tend to be ones who can either end battles without dealing damage or those who can deal a metric truckton of damage. With previous giants, I generally aimed for them to deal that metric truckton of damage and have a few abilities that made them good at dealing with the stuff that ended fights early.

So now I'm facing the Storm Giant. The giants kings of giantkind. The most highly evolved and badass giants you're liable to run into without looking for something more obscure in splatbooks. After talking to GorgonDantess on IM, my thoughts are:

• In the end, he's not a great brawler and not the best blaster, so while he might come across as powerful at first glance, he may well be mediocre in play.
• The Thunder & Lightning surges are supposed to make the interaction & alternating between brawling and blasting worthwhile, but the effects fall short (unless you consider the borderline OP utility of Thunder Step and Lightning Palm).
• There's also the issue of being easily shut down. If you can't deliver the lightning damage, you're not going to be able to set off the thunder surges (which means you're rendered a less than stellar brawler). Similarly, if you can't deliver the physical attacks, you can't set off the lightning surges, which means you're just a less than stellar blaster.
• And being a hybrid with no precedent or source material to draw from, there's not really any feats that lend themselves to supporting the Storm Giant's combos or playstyle. So you're left taking feats that either support the physical side of things, support the blaster side of things, or that support neither. This point and the point above it are big weaknesses of this approach to hybridization.
• And ultimately, he's a damage dealer. The problem with dealing damage in 3.5 is that:
  
  • If you deal damage to a foe and he ultimately dies because of a failed saving throw, you didn't really contribute to the defeat, aside from maybe being a distraction.
  • Dealing damage becomes massively less useful at later levels; while AC doesn't keep up with attack bonuses (becoming obsolete later), The hitpoints to CR ratio skyrockets as the levels climb. By late levels you're looking at round after round of wearing down your opponents, and even with spells, protections, spell resistances and stacked saving throws, it's generally more effective to just go for the save or lose.
  
  These issues are why I tend to give most of my brutes a decent alternative to dealing damage at high levels, be it taking a different role (tanking, defending, battlefield control) or just giving them a save or lose effect of their own. I was going for this with Lightning Palm, but while Lightning Palm is powerful, it needs to be set up, and by the time you do that, the fight may be over. And if you can't set it up or trigger it, then you're demoted to dealing irrelevant damage and hoping to be a distraction, like the higher level evokers, fighters and monks.

So that's where I'm at, in interpreting Stormy. That isn't to say he's unplayable in his current state (he isn't), but there's flaws there and even thinking on it on & off for a week or so I'm not sure how to go about it. Thoughts, ideas, preferences on the direction Stormy gets taken?

[Kobold-Bard]

Karsite



Class:

Spoiler

Show

Hit Dice: d8
{table]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1|+0|+0|+2|+0|Karsite Body, Eldritch Balance, Magic Draining Strike[/table]
Class Skills 4+Int Mod (x4 at 1st level): Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Planes), Profession, Sense Motive.

Proficiencies: Karsites are proficient with simple & martial weapons, light armour & shields.

Class Features:

Karsite Body (Ex): At first level the Karsite loses all racial traits and features, and gains the features of the Humanoid type. It is Medium sized and has a base land speed of 30ft.

Karsites gain no natural weapons or armour, but they do gain Spell Resistance equal to 10+HD+Cha Mod.

Karsites all have a pure white streak of hair and a single eye that is unusually pale blue. This bizarre eye grants them a +2 on Intimidate checks.

Eldritch Balance (Ex): Karsites have a natural block when it comes to using magic, due to the lasting vengeance the God of Magic laid down upon the Karsite's forebears. They suffer a racial 20% spell failure when they try to cast a spell (even Divine spells), but not SLAs. This reduces by 1 for every HD the Karsite gains after it takes this class to a minimum of 0. They may still use magic items as normal.

In exchange though, they have learned a technique to turn the magic of their enemies to their advantage. Whenever a spell fails to penetrate their spell resistance they heal 2HP/level of the spell, including Metamagic adjustments (0 level spells heal 1HP).

Rather than benefit from this healing the Karsite may instead choose to store this healing as Charge Points, they may have a maximum number of Charge Points stored at any one time equal to their HD. By spending 2 points/level of the spell in question (0 level spell require 1 Charge Point), the Karsite may treat themselves as being of an appropriate class (effective Cster level equal to their HD) & the spell as being on their class spell list for 1 round for the purpose of activating spell trigger & spell completion items.

Magic Draining Strike (Su): The Karsite's inability to use magic can actually be turned into a weapon to use against their foes. 1/round, if the Karsite makes a successful melee attack against a target and deals at least one point of damage, they may choose either the creatures weapon, armour or shield. Any magical enhancements on this item are suppressed for 1 round.

At 7HD the Karsite may choose any magical item on the target (except artefacts). At 14HD they may dispel a single active spell effect on the creature.

If the Karsite cannot identify a particular item/effect in their chosen category (weapon, armour, shield / other magic items / spell effects) then a dice is rolled by the DM to choose the effected one randomly.

Comments:

Spoiler

Show

Nice and simple, Karsite from the Tome of Magic.

Can't actually think of much to say, all the abilities are from the book. Left the no spellcasting thing in (reduced to Spell Failure rather than flat out impossibilty) because it's part of the flavour. If you reckon it should go then let me know.

[Hyudra]

While Karsite looks good, I wonder if it's perhaps too good a 1 level dip. The lack of full BAB and arcane spell failure kind of balances that out.

Um, other issues, lemme think... The charge points & spell trigger/completion items. What's your effective caster level? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I know that when you use a spell completion item & don't actually have spellcasting (such as a low level paladin), your effective caster level is treated as zero. It stands to reason, by extension, that you'd want to know your effective caster level as a Karsite, lest you be considered a level 0 caster (making it kinda lame).

Changing topics to my monsters: Medusa and Troll have been tweaked (see 2 posts above this one for how). Minotaur, I can't find anything left to tweak, and it feels pretty solid. It's a class I think I'd really enjoy playing, myself, so I'm hoping others feel the same way. Storm Giant is just a headache, for reasons stated in the post above. Feedback is appreciated on all counts.

[Kobold-Bard]

While Karsite looks good, I wonder if it's perhaps too good a 1 level dip. The lack of full BAB and arcane spell failure kind of balances that out.

Um, other issues, lemme think... The charge points & spell trigger/completion items. What's your effective caster level? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I know that when you use a spell completion item & don't actually have spellcasting (such as a low level paladin), your effective caster level is treated as zero. It stands to reason, by extension, that you'd want to know your effective caster level as a Karsite, lest you be considered a level 0 caster (making it kinda lame).

I did think that, that's why I left the Spell Failure in.

Added a line saying Effective CL = HD for that ability.

Edit: I've retaken up the Chimera, take it off the abandoned list.

[Hyudra]

Chimera is off the abandoned list. It was never on, but it's now off.

[Lord_Gareth]

Not to offend the person who so graciously volunteered to take up Illurien, but I had wondered if the awesome and beneficent Hyudra might have an interest in the Lady of the Myriad Glimpses?

[Hyudra]

I'm not interested in the Illurien, personally. I don't like longer classes, and I prefer embellishing one trick ponies so they're fully fleshed out classes, rather than working with 15+ level monsters that already have scads of stuff.

Besides, there's just not much fluff going for it. I read the monster entry in the official material and I still don't really get what it's supposed to be or what role it's supposed to take in the campaign.

[Zemro]

Blah, after loosing my original changes by accident last night, I'm finished the first wave up updates to the Marrash.

February 8th

• More spelling and grammar fixes.
• DC calculations made more concise.
• Disease Sense can now pinpoint locations easily and scales range based on HD
• Flight moved to a separate ability at fifth level

February 10th

• Plauged Movement renamed Glide
• Disease Carrier changed to include a natural disease and move to first level
• Draw Disease changed and move to second level
• New Ability (Outbreak) added at second level to cover disease carrier's previous functions
• Intensify Infection changed
• Archer's Presence moved to third level
• New Ability (Disease Healing) added at third level
• Afflictive Ammunition Updates to reflect changes to the disease mechanics.

However, I still have some changes and updates to make to the fourth and fifth levels of the class (particularly Takliff Curse). But I was hoping to find out if the changes and revisions done to the first three levels were going in the right direction, as if I'm not it'd be better to find out before I finish them then afterward.

I'm leaving to head back home now, and I hope to put up some commentary later this evening in addition to continuing with the Marrash.

[Saidoro]

Made changes to the Razor Boar.

• Added Surge of Force, Hard to Kill, Wrench, Barrel Through, and Unstoppable Rampage
• Made sharp tusks make tusks adamantine

Hopefully this'll make playing it a bit less samey.
It still needs an activeish ability for 8th level and possibly one at 5th level but my idea well for this thing has run a bit dry at the moment so I'm putting it on the back burner until I have more ideas for it. Any suggestions/critiques welcome.

[Hyudra]

Marrash

• With the changes to disease sense, what is the merit of using the swift action to boost disease sense? It seems it more or less does the same thing, but with better range, but it should be stated more clearly. It's vague.
• Flight looks good.
• I'd reword, under Disease Carrier, where you say: "Infected creatures must make another save at the beginning of their turn or taken an additional 1 point of Dex damage, success means they've beaten the disease and make no further saves unless reinfected" to state, instead, "Infected creatures must make another save at the beginning of each turn or take an additional point of Dex damage. Success on the save means they've beaten the disease and need make no further save unless reinfected."
• It seems, almost, worse to successfully make the save. If you remove it, then you're opening yourself up to that 1d2-1d3 initial damage.
• The drawn out damage is not stellar. I mean, let's say you're a level 3 Marrash against an Ogre. The Ogre doesn't have particularly high dex (8 dex), but you're still facing a minimum of, what, seven rounds (with seven saving throws) before he succumbs? Until then you're... just lowering his AC by 1 every 2 rounds?
• "If successful the Marrash traps a number of strains of the disease equal to half of his total result." - This is quite a few strains. I mean, if I'm level 3 and I'm rolling Fort, I'm getting, what, +7 on my fort save? Maybe +8? So I'm getting between 3 and 13 strains? Is this intended?
• When I use Outbreak, does it use the standard incubation & drawn out sickness?
• Not sure I love the 5 round wait for Intensify Infection.
• Disease Healing: Not sure I like it. It's just that the value you're using to determine healing is relatively arbitrary in the grand scheme of the game, and it seems like you could abuse this pretty badly. Like, if you're level 6, you've got 22 con... and let's say you've got 4 diseases. One from a dire rat, one from a ghoul, one case of blue guts from having a teammate eat a troll and devil fever from a bad situation at a church.
  
  Now the DM allows the group downtime, so your wizard can make magic items, your marshal can do his political stuff that he's doing for background & backstory, and so your rogue can get the training he needs to enter a prestige class. 1 month passes, and you've suddenly got 36 strains of each of the 4 diseases you carried.
  
  So you're essentially able to heal yourself for 36 at 6th level, or remove 3 points of ability damage, no sweat.
• Should be said, for Disease Healing, you get it at 3rd, but you can use the ability only once a day per 4 HD... which means you may well not be able to use it til 4th anyways.
• "As an added benefit, whenever a Marrash would be required to loose strains" -> lose.
• "As a standard action he can infect a piece of ammunition that deals piercing or slashing damage with Marrashi Fever, or a carried disease by consuming one of its strains." -> reads awkwardly with the comma in the middle of the underlined area there. End the sentence where the comma is, and have a new sentence like, "The Marrash may consume one of its strains to apply that to the ammunition instead."

Razor Boar

• You should state whether Razor Boars can speak or not.
• Surge of Force:
  
  • Ok, so I recognize this as one step forward in making the Razor Boar more active to play. That said, while it's a step forward, and it's a decison whether & when to use it, the fact that it's a swift action & it's only once a day at low levels means that it's not adding a ton to the round-by-round of combats. Get what I mean?
    
    Like, (sorry to plug my own work, but) contrast with the Medusa. She also gets an ability that can be used as a swift action with a passive benefit at low level. Thing is, she gets two. So round by round, you're making a call on which to use. There's an active decision making process involved, as opposed to "This is probably going to be the hardest encounter of the day, so I'll use it."
  • The ability seems a little weak. Contrast with Barbarian. Admittedly, there's drawbacks to the Barbarian's Rage, but still.
  • Which leads me to wonder, is it perhaps problematic if you're stacking this & rage at low levels? That's a pretty sizeable bonus.
• Hard to Kill:
  
  • Mildly concerned with how fast these are scaling and how quickly they're picked up. At 1st level I've got just one swift-action-for-one-round's-benefit ability. At 2nd I've got four. By 20th I've got 40?
  • The actual benefit is ok.
• Wrench:
  
  • "Once per day per 2 HD after being struck and damaged by a piercing or slashing weapon the boar can move in such a way as to tear that weapon from their opponent's hands" -> needs a comma after HD and weapon.
  • "Weapons so disarmed remain stuck in the boar's hide until removed, an action that requires a successful touch attack against the boar followed by a disarm check as above if the boar is unwilling or a successful dc 5 heal check if the boar is willing" -> run on sentence. Kind of awkwardly constructed, even if I ignore how much is said. Break it down & make it easier to read?
  • "Those who fail the reflex save are treateed as flat-footed" -> treated.
  • "thos who fail by 3 or more are knocked prone" -> those
  • "thos who fail by 3 or more are knocked prone and considered flat-footed until they are no longer prone" -> I may be wrong, but I think prone targets are effectively flat footed anyways.
  • "A creature with a stuck natural weapon is pulled into the boar's square and can take no action beyond attempting to free itself, a full round action in which it makes a strength check opposed by the boar's constitution check, if the trapped creature rolls higher it pulls itself free and can move to any space adjacent to the boar, if the boar is successful the trapped creature takes bludgeoning and piercing damage equal to the boar's HD from the movement of its hide and sharp hairs." -> run on sentence.
• Barrel Through:
  
  • Give examples for squares where terrain could reasonably be cleared.
  • "is dealt to destroy the source of cover the target doe not gain" -> does.
  • "the attack against the target haS no effect." -> miscapitalization there.
• Unstoppable Rampage:
  
  • "At tenth level th boar's unstoppable" -> the.
  • "untoppable" -> unstoppable.

Edit

With GorgonDantess' input...

Troll revisions, Feb 11, 2011:

• Changed Chomp (described above, in the changelog) back to Gnaw, but changed mechanics. It now lets the Troll bite, followed by making a Strength check against the foe. Each strength check you pass deals con damage and lets you make another strength check (with a penalty on the check and more con damage) until you fail.

Edit #2

Also, was discussing the critiquing responsibilities with Gorgondantess. Just formalizing the arrangement that's sort of come into play, what we'll be doing is having me try and get you guys to the nearly-done stage, and then having Gorgon check over your work to offer a second set of eyes and potentially give his vote.

By vouching for you guys as being nearly done, I'm essentially saying "I can't give any further input" and typically giving my own vote, so that'll be enough to get you on the master list.

With that in mind, just off the top of my head, the nearly dones include:

• Thorn
• Solamith
• Bleakborn
• Gray Jester
• Gargoyle
• Cloaker
• Troll
• Minotaur
• Karsite
• Dwarf Ancestor*

*I'm not vouching for Dwarf Ancestor. I think there's some general issues with the class, but my discussion of these issues with Chambers has led to something of a stalemate between us. Chambers has been asking for a while, for a second set of eyes to review the class.

So there's a bit of a backlog there, but the monsters overall are in pretty good shape. People have been making changes and listening to my feedback for a bit now, and we're just needing Gorgon to hammer them home, so to speak. Gorgon's currently working on Ethergaunt, so I imagine he'll be willing to give the necessary critiques and votes when he's done or nearly done.

[Zemro]

Marrash
With the changes to disease sense, what is the merit of using the swift action to boost disease sense? It seems it more or less does the same thing, but with better range, but it should be stated more clearly. It's vague.

Well, there's still the small flavour perk of being able to tell exactly what disease someone possess. I suppose I could just roll that into the main ability somehow, or consider some other perks.

I'd reword, under Disease Carrier, where you say: "Infected creatures must make another save at the beginning of their turn or taken an additional 1 point of Dex damage, success means they've beaten the disease and make no further saves unless reinfected" to state, instead, "Infected creatures must make another save at the beginning of each turn or take an additional point of Dex damage. Success on the save means they've beaten the disease and need make no further save unless reinfected."

*nods* Thanks, wording things like this is not always my strong suit.

• It seems, almost, worse to successfully make the save. If you remove it, then you're opening yourself up to that 1d2-1d3 initial damage.
• The drawn out damage is not stellar. I mean, let's say you're a level 3 Marrash against an Ogre. The Ogre doesn't have particularly high dex (8 dex), but you're still facing a minimum of, what, seven rounds (with seven saving throws) before he succumbs? Until then you're... just lowering his AC by 1 every 2 rounds?

Well, you're likely to have a party, but I can see your point. I figured since you're have a chance to apply it every attack it shouldn't be too good. I could probably up the initial and recurring damage a step or two to start with, to either 1d3 and then 2 Dex, or start right off with 1d3 and then 2 Dex and Con. The latter almost seems overkill, but I suppose since you can't stack it?

I initially had making the save prevent reinfection for something like 1d4 rounds, but wasn't sure it would be necessary. Putting that in might round things off, and make a higher starting damage seem more reasonable?

As a side note apparently diseases require two successful saves in a row to cure yourself of one, which I had embarrassingly overlooked. It's pretty different as far as diseases go already, so maybe that's fine...

"If successful the Marrash traps a number of strains of the disease equal to half of his total result." - This is quite a few strains. I mean, if I'm level 3 and I'm rolling Fort, I'm getting, what, +7 on my fort save? Maybe +8? So I'm getting between 3 and 13 strains? Is this intended?

I may have tweaked it a little high, I figured there'd be more of an incentive to go through uses, but may have just twiched things from too low to too high. I was thinking around +6 on the save though, but it's quite likely I'm placing down different values for stats than you are.

Technically with a +6 the range would be from 6 to 13 though, as the lowest DC is 12 and you have to beat that to get the disease.

When I use Outbreak, does it use the standard incubation & drawn out sickness?

The intent is to bypass the incubation period, but yes, if you did get out of the battle alive you'd have a full blown case of whatever to deal with. I'll clarify.

Not sure I love the 5 round wait for Intensify Infection.

Me neither, I just wanted to get a number down to use as a starting point. I was thinking 1d4 rounds like a breathweapon might be better, but are you thinking shorter? longer? At-will?

Disease Healing: Not sure I like it. It's just that the value you're using to determine healing is relatively arbitrary in the grand scheme of the game, and it seems like you could abuse this pretty badly. Like, if you're level 6, you've got 22 con... and let's say you've got 4 diseases. One from a dire rat, one from a ghoul, one case of blue guts from having a teammate eat a troll and devil fever from a bad situation at a church.

Now the DM allows the group downtime, so your wizard can make magic items, your marshal can do his political stuff that he's doing for background & backstory, and so your rogue can get the training he needs to enter a prestige class. 1 month passes, and you've suddenly got 36 strains of each of the 4 diseases you carried.

So you're essentially able to heal yourself for 36 at 6th level, or remove 3 points of ability damage, no sweat.

I have never been in a game where I could get that sort of downtime, but yes I suppose you could heal 36hp... after waiting a month to do so. I can see you point but I'm not really feeling your example of abuse. It's also once per day, and you do lose that disease, since one of your comments earlier was about how getting disease wouldn't be straight forward, I don't quite follow.

It was mainly an idea I had, I figured it'd be nice to not have strains got to waste and have some option to curse diseases, and though adding in something to make in an interest option wouldn't hurt.

Should I tone down the rate? Should I tone down maximum strains? What would be the best direction to look in?

Your comments to seem to indicate that I'm gone from too low to too high on the strains, though. So I think I'll reduce those slightly.

Should be said, for Disease Healing, you get it at 3rd, but you can use the ability only once a day per 4 HD... which means you may well not be able to use it til 4th anyways.

I have no explanation for this... clearly I should read my writing better.

• "As an added benefit, whenever a Marrash would be required to loose strains" -> lose.
• "As a standard action he can infect a piece of ammunition that deals piercing or slashing damage with Marrashi Fever, or a carried disease by consuming one of its strains." -> reads awkwardly with the comma in the middle of the underlined area there. End the sentence where the comma is, and have a new sentence like, "The Marrash may consume one of its strains to apply that to the ammunition instead."

Fixed, as always thanks for the commentary.

PS. I'm looking at a couple monster from the unfinished list right now, and will have comments on them done before I go to bed.

EDIT: Here's one... kinda tired now I'll try and comment again on something tomorrow.

Dwarf Ancestor

Spoiler

Show

• Listing the location of the original monster would be nice. (MMIV Pg 54, by the way)
• No shield proficiencies? Interesting choice...
• The body ability could stand to be cleaned up some, you might as well list the descriptions of the last three abilities with their name rather then having them listed twice.
• Proficiencies could go by themselves above the ability, more like with a standard class entry rather then a monster one.
• Might be best to note that Anscetral Spirit is 1 +1 per 4 HD, rather than character levels.
• Further more, why not the Dwarven Ancestor as well? From a mechanical standpoint you're not really getting a lot of interesting things this level, and it's hardly unbalanced.. Technically a Warforged Bard using Inspire Courage could serve just as as the Ancestor at this level.
• Why power attack as a bonus feat at second level? The only reason I wouldn't have taken it at first is because then my second level would be a waste. I'd either provide something different, or allow another feat to be chosen if power attack is already possessed.
• Second level is kinda boring regardless I'm afraid. You may want to considering adding active options over passive benefits. Aside from being worse at bull-rushing and grappling our hypothetical Warforged Bard isn't much worse off in combat and will have a spell or two for options, despite his charisma penalty.
• Third level really isn't any better, to be honest. It's a small boost to AC, damage, and some checks that don't really see a lot of use or benefit.
• Consider building some sort of dungeon crasher analogue? If you're already so good at bull rushing, slamming people into walls to do damage seems both logical and dwarven.
• Still favouring the Warforged Bard, he's getting second level spells at 4th, you're getting more fortification and a bonus you're not benefiting from.
• Stone Hammer is neat, though while only effecting enemies is nice I'm not sure on the sense (not really going to complain though). Damage is unimpressive, it takes twice as much non-lethal as lethal to take an opponent down, and many creature are immune. Prone is nifty, but you're unlikely to be able to take advantage of it personally and you're not really hurting anyone much. Still, something like this could've been much cooler with some tweaking and earlier.
• Blink Out is also neat, not sure if I'm a fan on the limitation though. This could also be tweaked and developed, and become a rather neat ability to have and use.
• Unless he's physically doing this, why is it Ex? And if he is, would ripping the ground at people's feat provoke AoOs? The effect is decent, but boring and perhaps could use some clarifying the match the fluff up.
• Sixth level is overall unimpressive for a capstone, fifth level was by far the high point of this class. I'd suggest developing things like that further instead of the passive buffs.

[Hyudra]

Dwarf Ancestor
Further more, why not the Dwarven Ancestor as well? From a mechanical standpoint you're not really getting a lot of interesting things this level, and it's hardly unbalanced.. Technically a Warforged Bard using Inspire Courage could serve just as as the Ancestor at this level.

The issue was, with full BAB coupled with the class' Str bonuses (which I don't agree with, personally), it was already getting a lot of bonuses to attacks, which all scales with the free power attack. Getting a further attack boost from the aura seemed overkill.

[Gorgondantess]

Thorn:
Slumbering shots: I know you like the nonlethal damage thing, but don't give it bonuses the lethal damage one doesn't have- scrap the -2 to save for nonlethal damage.

Melee piercing strikes: remove the DR piercing AND the regeneration piercing and it still should be great.
Do those two things, and it goes on the list.

Solamith:
Foreign soulfire... I did say that it would be good with a summoned monster. If you want to change that, it's on the list. If you don't, it's on the list.

Bleakborn: despite what you've said, I don't believe you changed it to reflect my critiques.

Gray Jester: 50' move speed is a little much for level 1.
Hideous Laughter: does the feint force them to make the save, or actually hitting them? Either way, that's a pretty silly high save DC for something that can be accomplished so easily.

Devour joy: "All laughing creature[s] can"
Don't abbreviate randomly.
Anyways, I see no reason why a gray jester would ever use this. Those under the effects of a hideous laughter spell have pretty much already lost. This makes them not lose, and then weakens the jester.

Joy slaves: Ehhhh... I donno... that means you could get a bunch of characters equal to your ECL as joy slaves. Including wizards, who never use charisma. Kindof difficult, but very, very possible.

Gargoyle:

Hideous visage is pretty lame. First of all, just give it intimidate as a class skill- it fits. Secondly, do you realize how incredibly lame demoralize is? Shaken for 1 round, whoopdeedoo. It's a waste of a standard move action, in other words.

Sudden strike should scale. Something like an additional 1d6 at 5 HD and every 5 thereafter? Don't want to give potential for a sudden striking beast, but by 6th level or so a mere 1d6 is looking pretty lame... let alone level 20.

These are still perfectly relevant, as well as some other critiques. Don't make me tell you these things twice.

Cloaker:
Engulf: can it make a bite attack every round?
Cloak: so, your gargantuan fire giant ally, you can carry them?
Obscure vision: how much concealment?
Improved Engulf: Um... so it can make iterative attacks with its bite? Normally you can't do that, y'know.
Unnerve: scale!
Fear: scale! Also, panick is pretty powerful for 5th level. Start with frightened.
Nausea: scale!
Stupor: scale!

Troll: Text/table error: you still have it as gnaw.
Thrash: might want to let them make a jump check with a bonus as a part of the trip action.
Violent Onslaught: looks situational, and not always too useful, but fun!
Otherwise, looks good.

Minotaur: Looks good!

Karsite: SR is a bit low. Standard for high SR creatures is 10+HD+Cha mod.
0 level spells are usually considered 1/2 level 1 spells, and thus should heal 1 hp.
Otherwise, looks good!

Dwarf Ancestor: I've talked with Hyudra in the past on this, and I agree with her on all accounts pertaining to the Dwarf Ancestor.

[Crafty Cultist]

Bleakborn: despite what you've said, I don't believe you changed it to reflect my critiques.

I fixed the spelling and grammar errors you pointed out, moved create spawn up a level, and allowed the bleakborn to use brittle strike at will once it reaches max level. I think those were the main areas you critiqued on weren't they?

[Kobold-Bard]

Fixed both those issues with the Karsite, they were both derps on part.

By popular demand and overwhelming common sense from everyone except
me the Chimera will have three heads, not 4.

Also: dunno if people missed It but I made some changes to the Quasi-God, detailed here - http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showp...&postcount=414

[Hyudra]

Thanks for your hard work, GorgonDantess.

Karsite, Troll, Minotaur added to the main list. Waiting for the ok before I add Solamith.

Kobold-Bard - didn't miss the Quasi-God, and not ignoring it. It's just a hard creature to get one's head around in terms of role and general power/balance level, so I/we tend to shy away a little, and have trouble speaking with confidence when critiquing or interpreting it.

I'm about a quarter of the way through my secret project, codenamed XRD. That aside, I may step in and put out the Drow in the near future, unless anyone has recommendations/preferences on monsters that Oslecamo did that badly need updating. I can see myself doing Aboleth, Aranea, Centaur, Doppleganger, Dryad, Gnoll, Mind Flayer, Ogre Mage or Rakshasa. Yuan-Ti if I'm allowed to cheat and copy Serpentine Stances from Medusa.

[Zemro]

Thorn:
Slumbering shots: I know you like the nonlethal damage thing, but don't give it bonuses the lethal damage one doesn't have- scrap the -2 to save for nonlethal damage.

Melee piercing strikes: remove the DR piercing AND the regeneration piercing and it still should be great.
Do those two things, and it goes on the list.

Done and done

[Hyudra]

Thorn added to the main list.

Man, am I glad to finally be making headway against that 'Unfinished Monsters' list.

[Gorgondantess]

Gnoll

I'd personally like to do the gnoll. They're my favorite monstrous humanoid race.

Mind Flayer

Maybe just scrap his and keep the psionic mindflayer (which maybe could use a revision here and there- I'd like to hear your thoughts on that).

Also, it's Gorgondantess. One word. Consistent capitalization.

Also, I thought the doppelganger was okay. Not perfect, but I'd play it.

[Hyudra]

I'd personally like to do the gnoll. They're my favorite monstrous humanoid race.

Sure.

Maybe just scrap his and keep the psionic mindflayer (which maybe could use a revision here and there- I'd like to hear your thoughts on that).

Psionics really aren't my forte. I could look it over though.

Also, it's Gorgondantess. One word. Consistent capitalization.

So noted.

Also, I thought the doppelganger was okay. Not perfect, but I'd play it.

But it could be so much more!

No, in all honesty, I was just looking over the creatures on the list and naming ones I would be interested in doing up, if they were deemed broken or problematic. I haven't investigated each in turn, and was just naming names.

[Zemro]

The current Doppleganger has some neat things going for it, but I personally might be interested in seeing what you may do with it (the Int focus actually bugged me a bit, but that's only because I thought the race would be perfect for a Cha-focused PrC if not for that.)

I think there's other monsters that could use the attention more though, the Doppelganger's in a pretty good place just not an amazingly interesting one.

After I'm in a better place with the Marrash I was thinking about looking to some of monsters that need updating or have been abandoned. Figure it might be a bit easier to do a monster when there's something to go on instead of from scratch.

[Hyudra]

I'm not dedicating myself to updating Oslecamo's work exclusively, either. If there's other classes, ideally between 4 and 8 levels, that are sorely in need of tweaking, I could update those.

There's no creatures that I'm craving to do, at present, so I might as well work on the boring and the flawed, from the bad old days.

[Gorgondantess]

So noted.

...I see what you did there.

[Makiru]

Ok, I'll put the summoned monster clause back on to Foreign Soulfire and finally put this guy behind me! It's been a long time coming, but I'm glad to finally get it done.

[Hyudra]

Aaand Solamith is on the main list.

[ScionoftheVoid]

Gargoyle:
These are still perfectly relevant, as well as some other critiques. Don't make me tell you these things twice.

I have now (hopefully) fixed those two complaints, though at six HD you're only throwing 1d6 of Sudden Strike if you only take ability once and don't take any of the abilities which synergise with it (extra natural weapons being obvious). Fair point on Hideous Visage, though it should be good now.

The only ones in your original critique that might still be relevant are Zealous Carvings' save boosts (and I can make it only one save if you wish), Statuesque Perfection (which you still haven't given any reasons for) and Stone Cold's very long list of immunities (which now covers everything a Construct's does, plus a bit for being an object), which I can spoiler if necessary or cut down if you give suggestions. I'd have thought being an object would prevent taking actions but I added it explicitly anyway.