The LA-assignment thread VII: LA LA Land

[lord_khaine]

I think with self-propulsion active there are enough arguments for making one of these into either a Wilder or a Ardent.
So my vote is for +0 LA

[Blue Jay]

Phthisis is the Greek word for wasting, so that makes sense, I guess.

Wikipedia says there was also a being from Greek mythology called Phthisis, who was a personification of "wasting away"; so I bet that's where the psionic monster came from.

[Elkad]

If it got all the relevant abilities at the appropriate levels (telespeech at 4th, flight at 9th, etc), I could see +0.

With just the L1 abilities or not even those? -0

[Unavenger]

No hands(or other limbs for that matter), for one. No eyes or real way of sensing the outside world, for another. No telepathy and thus no mindsight. No flight. No real anything. You're getting adjustments of Str -(-10*) Dex -(+2*) Con - Int -4 Wis +0 Cha +0 with literally no ability to move*, wield weapons, speak, see, hear, or anything else you can think of.

Sure you gain diminutive size and construct immunities, but at the risk of being unable to do practically anything outside of a specific few classes or a few edge cases it's far too much to pay.

*With self-activated propulsion these modifiers are applied and you gain the ability to move with a speed of 30 ft. and climb 20 ft. but really that doesn't help its' case all too much.

Wilders don't need hands, and with self-propulsion active the crystal does have "Other limbs for that matter".

And we don't judge water orcs on how good a wizard they make. Why is it so wrong to judge psicrystals as wilders compared to other wilders, where they clearly come up on top in basically every way conceivable?

To be clear, having more hardness than some party members will have hit points at first level is insane. At higher levels, the hardness starts to tail off but never really goes out of fashion - you take about 1/3 the normal damage from a rampaging black bear, and almost no damage from the CR 8 hellwasp swarm. Meanwhile, the lack of hands becomes less and less relevant as you gain levels (and so long as at least one party member has hands, I'm not sure how relevant it was in the first place).

Ultravision 40 ft is, Imma be the one to say it, better than regular vision 95% of the time. It's not quite as good as the Canoloth and its blindsight, but I'm still happily on the "Better than regular vision" train here.

If I were going to play a wilder, and I could play a psicrystal with self-propulsion for LA 0, I would never not do that if power were my aim. That's a surefire sign that the LA needs to be at least 1.

[No brains]

The comments about the etymology of the Fish Stick are especially poignant...

DM: You encounter a Fish Stick
Player: A what?
DM: A psi-troll that has some relation to the Greek word for wasting.
Player: It's all Greek to me. Getting into its name is wasting time. I'm going to kill and forget about it.
DM: ...I suppose that is the smart thing to do.

[lord_khaine]

Wilders don't need hands, and with self-propulsion active the crystal does have "Other limbs for that matter".

And we don't judge water orcs on how good a wizard they make. Why is it so wrong to judge psicrystals as wilders compared to other wilders, where they clearly come up on top in basically every way conceivable?

To be clear, having more hardness than some party members will have hit points at first level is insane. At higher levels, the hardness starts to tail off but never really goes out of fashion - you take about 1/3 the normal damage from a rampaging black bear, and almost no damage from the CR 8 hellwasp swarm. Meanwhile, the lack of hands becomes less and less relevant as you gain levels (and so long as at least one party member has hands, I'm not sure how relevant it was in the first place).

Ultravision 40 ft is, Imma be the one to say it, better than regular vision 95% of the time. It's not quite as good as the Canoloth and its blindsight, but I'm still happily on the "Better than regular vision" train here.

If I were going to play a wilder, and I could play a psicrystal with self-propulsion for LA 0, I would never not do that if power were my aim. That's a surefire sign that the LA needs to be at least 1.

Or an Ardent?
Pick up metamophis.
Play the transformer theme song as you turn into an animated stone statue and pummel stuff?
(just because you can, not because its optimal play)

Or get leadership. Get a Warforged followed, ride around on his/her head blasting stuff.

The character concepts basically makes themselves.
This becomes a viable choice the moment it gets self propulsion.

[liquidformat]

As odd as it seems, psicrystals can speak, so they can perform verbal components.

By default they actually can't speak, their master has to reach level 5 in order for the psicrystal to speak...

I vote -0* LA for the psicrystal as it is dysfunctional. Without some house ruling, you have an intelligent rock that can't communicate nor move.

Here is how I think it breaks down to be functional:

1. A masterless psicrystal is treated as its own master for purpose of abilities
2. A psicrystal retains all traits that aren't master dependent (IE it looses delivering touch powers, share powers, Telepathic Link, Power Resistance?, Sight Link, Channel Power)

With these two assumptions in place we can properly determine when the psicrystal goes from -0 to +0 to +1.

I think the break even point (+0) is master level 9 which gives +4 Int, +4 NA, Flight, and Telepathic Speech. At this point it has Net -6 ability scores and enough goodies to offset its issues.

The break point for +1 is either master level 11 if it gets Power Resistance hd+5, or some where between master level 13-15 if it doesn't retain Power Resistance.

[jindra34]

Yeah I'm going to throw my hat into the ring as +/- 0 depending on what degree of abilities it gets to pickup from a 'master'. With out self propulsion its so negative it hurts, with it I would debate playing it, though more likely for the novelty than the power. With full master abilities progression I could see it being useful in limited classes. Not going to have a wide selection of classes but the ones it can use are on the upper end of the spectrum.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Wilders don't need hands [...]

That's one hell of an assumption there. I guess wilders don't need psicrowns, torcs, dorjes, or power stones either? Oh, and I guess wilders don't ever need to open doors, or pick up a macguffin, or open a chest. That's right, wilders are passive lumps of meat that only interact with the game through their powers!

Similarly, your assertion that 40' psychic vision somehow beats regular vision is deeply flawed. For example, you ask for directions. Anonymous commoner #14 points you towards the bell tower. You cannot see the bell tower. What do you do? Even worse: you can't aim any of your powers beyond 40', so anything with Medium or Long range is essentially wasted.

Overall, I think you're seriously underestimating what it takes to play a successful wilder (or ardent). Psicrystals get almost none of the things that other races take for granted--speech, hands, mobility, senses, slots. LA -0, easily.

[Blue Jay]

By default they actually can't speak, their master has to reach level 5 in order for the psicrystal to speak...

It gains Telepathic Speech at 5th level, but it can speak normally right from creation. From the SRD Psion page:

"A psicrystal can speak one language of its owner’s choice (so long as it is a language the owner knows). A psicrystal can understand all other languages known by its owner, but cannot speak them. This is a*supernatural ability."

[liquidformat]

It gains Telepathic Speech at 5th level, but it can speak normally right from creation. From the SRD Psion page:

"A psicrystal can speak one language of its owner’s choice (so long as it is a language the owner knows). A psicrystal can understand all other languages known by its owner, but cannot speak them. This is a*supernatural ability."

I missed that, but it still follows the same point. If a masterless psicrystal doesn't retain anything from when it had a master it doesn't by default get any one language. It gets what it gets from the monster entry, IE an intelligent rock incapable of moving or communicating...

[Caelestion]

I missed that, but it still follows the same point. If a masterless psicrystal doesn't retain anything from when it had a master it doesn't by default get any one language. It gets what it gets from the monster entry, IE an intelligent rock incapable of moving or communicating...

Given that this thread doesn't bother to specify how an animated object or awakened animal became so, I think it a little bit churlish to assume the worst-case scenario. Obviously, even the hypothetical highly permissive player isn't going to want to play something that can't move or communicate.

[liquidformat]

Given that this thread doesn't bother to specify how an animated object or awakened animal became so, I think it a little bit churlish to assume the worst-case scenario. Obviously, even the hypothetical highly permissive player isn't going to want to play something that can't move or communicate.

Awaken Animal/Construct were talked about in some of the initial thread and it was decided not to take account of them in the rating since it is hard to quantify the dice rolls into LA and most of the time the over arching issues with the creature like massive hd bloat wouldn't be fixed even if that was taken into account. However, this is a different situation where people are basing their votes on picking and choosing what parts are valid or not valid. My point is this should be -0* as its functionality while it had a master and when it doesn't is pretty dramatic, and it seems unreasonable to erroneously choose which abilities it keeps and which it doesn't.

[GreatWyrmGold]

That is true, yes. I was referring about the vast number of LA -0s assigned in this thread, to be exact.

The sad fact is that most monsters just have too many dang RHD to justify their cool abilities, and negative level adjustment is not something anyone in this thread has had the stomach to go through with for more than a few monsters.

Phthisis is the Greek word for wasting, so that makes sense, I guess.

So WotC wasn't grabbing random words from a medical dictionary, they were grabbing random words from Google Translate!
...Which I have never done when I needed to name something...

That's one hell of an assumption there. I guess wilders don't need psicrowns, torcs, dorjes, or power stones either? Oh, and I guess wilders don't ever need to open doors, or pick up a macguffin, or open a chest. That's right, wilders are passive lumps of meat that only interact with the game through their powers!

Silly ExLibris. All characters are passive lumps of meat that only interact with the game through their class abilities! Concerns about being able to function outside of combat, or even in combats more complex than three orcs in a 20-foot room, are completely irrelevant to level adjustment. What kind of DM runs games more complex than that, anyway?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Silly ExLibris. All characters are passive lumps of meat that only interact with the game through their class abilities! Concerns about being able to function outside of combat, or even in combats more complex than three orcs in a 20-foot room, are completely irrelevant to level adjustment. What kind of DM runs games more complex than that, anyway?

New campaign setting: the entire universe is composed of 20' by 20' by 20' cubes (5' unworked stone separating walls, 5' openings in each wall and ceiling), each cube containing exactly three orcs. The orcs interact in basic, predictable ways, and their combined behaviour results in a perfect simulation of a Minecraft server. The Minecraft server, meanwhile...

[liquidformat]

New campaign setting: the entire universe is composed of 20' by 20' by 20' cubes (5' unworked stone separating walls, 5' openings in each wall and ceiling), each cube containing exactly three orcs. The orcs interact in basic, predictable ways, and their combined behaviour results in a perfect simulation of a Minecraft server. The Minecraft server, meanwhile...

Reminds me of the movie cube...

[Thurbane]

I can't help but wonder what the LA on an inanimate carbon rod would be?

[Caelestion]

You'd have to C for yourself, I think.

[Blue Jay]

I missed that, but it still follows the same point. If a masterless psicrystal doesn't retain anything from when it had a master it doesn't by default get any one language. It gets what it gets from the monster entry, IE an intelligent rock incapable of moving or communicating...

Why wouldn't it retain anything from when it had a master? There aren't any rules about psicrystals losing abilities (there also aren't any rules about the master losing XP when a psicrystal dies, or about replacing a psicrystal), so I don't see any reason to assume that any psicrystal would ever lose any of its abilities. So, it's pretty safe to assume that every single psicrystal in existence will at least have the abilities of a 1st-level psicrystal. The self-propulsion is a problem, because it has to be activated daily by a master; but everything else should work by RAW.

[javcs]

Why wouldn't it retain anything from when it had a master? There aren't any rules about psicrystals losing abilities (there also aren't any rules about the master losing XP when a psicrystal dies, or about replacing a psicrystal), so I don't see any reason to assume that any psicrystal would ever lose any of its abilities. So, it's pretty safe to assume that every single psicrystal in existence will at least have the abilities of a 1st-level psicrystal. The self-propulsion is a problem, because it has to be activated daily by a master; but everything else should work by RAW.

Eh ... considering that a psicrystal is an externalized physical manifestation of its master's subconscious or whatever ... I'd say that when the master dies, the psicrystal discorporates. And if the psicrystal gets smashed, the master can just rematerialize the manifestation without much trouble once they're out of combat.

[Dimers]

Not that it saves the psicrystal from LA -0, but a psionic one could take Psicrystal Affinity for something to ride around on -- or, depending on the DM and player, to be its own master.

I'd be eager to try playing one in an unoptimized game, all the same. Me and the half-elf swashbuckler could be besties.

[Inevitability]

A few questions.

First, if you houserule that a psicrystal gets the abilities listed in the "master's level" as it levels up, that would still be LA -0, right?

Probably yeah. Maaaaaybe at high enough levels the net intelligence gain would be worth it, but honestly you're still without limbs and item slots at that point so probably not.

Second, Hardness 8 is basically DR 8/-, since most abilities that negate all DR tend to do the same with hardness I think?

There's some differences. DR only applies against weapon damage, but hardness also helps against, say, Magic Missiles.

Third, how does Return to Nature on a Half-Giant make it Fine size? From what I've seen that spell only makes them one size smaller.

Normally, spell effects from multiple castings don't stack. However, spell effects from instantaneous spells do stack: being hit by a fireball doesn't make the next one hurt any less.

Return to Nature is an instantaneous spell, and therefore its effects on any giant are that it reduces them by one size. The caster is free to repeat the entire process for another size decrease.

As a nice added bonus, there's no ongoing effects and nobody can Dispel you back into medium-ness.

[liquidformat]

Why wouldn't it retain anything from when it had a master? There aren't any rules about psicrystals losing abilities (there also aren't any rules about the master losing XP when a psicrystal dies, or about replacing a psicrystal), so I don't see any reason to assume that any psicrystal would ever lose any of its abilities. So, it's pretty safe to assume that every single psicrystal in existence will at least have the abilities of a 1st-level psicrystal. The self-propulsion is a problem, because it has to be activated daily by a master; but everything else should work by RAW.

Why would it retain any of the abilities not presented in its monster entry?

[Unavenger]

That's one hell of an assumption there. I guess wilders don't need psicrowns, torcs, dorjes, or power stones either?

I don't think I've ever used a psicrown, power stone or dorje. And a psicrystal practically has a head, so it should be able to wear head-slot items anyway.

Oh, and I guess wilders don't ever need to open doors, or pick up a macguffin, or open a chest. That's right, wilders are passive lumps of meat that only interact with the game through their powers!

I can go sarcasm mode too: Oh, yeah, I remember now! Wilders are loners who never adventure with anyone else, who might have hands!

Assuming that the party rogue has hands, whether or not the wilder does is basically 95% irrelevant.

Similarly, your assertion that 40' psychic vision somehow beats regular vision is deeply flawed. For example, you ask for directions. Anonymous commoner #14 points you towards the bell tower. You cannot see the bell tower. What do you do?

That depends, does the party rogue have eyes?

Even worse: you can't aim any of your powers beyond 40', so anything with Medium or Long range is essentially wasted.

Correction: the medium or long range of any power with medium or long range is essentially wasted. The power itself functions just fine at the range at which 97% of all activity in D&D takes place.

Overall, I think you're seriously underestimating what it takes to play a successful wilder (or ardent).

And I think you're seriously underestimating the value of teamwork.

Psicrystals get almost none of the things that other races take for granted--speech, hands, mobility, senses, slots. LA -0, easily.

Apart from hands, they get literally all of those things. I don't know why anyone thinks they can't speak when their description specifies that they can speak. They have ultravision, and I'd rather have three party members with normal vision, two with darkvision and normal vision, and one with ultravision than four with normal vision and two with darkvision and normal vision. They can move and climb, assuming self-propulsion active. And they definitely possess at least some item slots.

In combat, your vision is better than everyone else's and you don't need your hands to do anything you're likely to want to. Out of combat, having different party members with different vision types is helpful, and your party can use their hands to do whatever needs doing anyway. It's not a massive deal.

[Sutr]

They also dont sleep as constructs. They dont look like a character. They never have to eat and may be effectively immortal.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't think I've ever used a psicrown, power stone or dorje. And a psicrystal practically has a head, so it should be able to wear head-slot items anyway.

I can go sarcasm mode too: Oh, yeah, I remember now! Wilders are loners who never adventure with anyone else, who might have hands!

Assuming that the party rogue has hands, whether or not the wilder does is basically 95% irrelevant.

That depends, does the party rogue have eyes?

Correction: the medium or long range of any power with medium or long range is essentially wasted. The power itself functions just fine at the range at which 97% of all activity in D&D takes place.

And I think you're seriously underestimating the value of teamwork.

Basically, what this tells me is that you are only considering very low-OP kick-in-the-door style dungeon crawlers, where any task has a clear label (door: rogue, monster: fighter, anything else: wizard), and you're never expected to do anything for yourself or go out of your assigned task package. I'm sorry, but this is an optimization forum, and I except a lot more depth out of my games.

[javcs]

Wait, you've never used a power stone or dorje?

Clearly, you've never used psionics or encountered prevalent psionics at moderate or higher levels.

Power stones are basically psi-scrolls, and dorjes are basically psi-wands.

I don't know about you, but in my experience, such things are, shall we say, decidedly useful.
Might not need them every day ... but if you told someone that their character couldn't use scrolls/power stones or wands/dorjes ... they probably aren't going to be happy about it - especially if their only viable build is a caster/manifester.
I know that I certainly wouldn't want to play a character that is as limited as a psicrystal.

[Celestia]

Items that psicrystals are physically incapable of using:
Weapons - no hands
Shields- no weapons
Hats - no head
Bracers - no wrists
Gloves - no hands
Pants - no legs
Boots - no feet
Necklaces- no neck
Rings - no fingers
Potions - no mouth
Alchemical items - no hands
Tool kits - no hands
Scrolls - no eyes
Wands - no hands
Staffs- no hands
Rods - no hands
Most wondrous/universal items - no hands
Dorjes- no hands
Power stones - no hands
Psicrowns - no head
Psionic tattoos- no skin

So that leaves, what? A psicrystal can definitely use ioun stones and psychoactive skins and can arguably use armor, shirts, and belts (though it can't equip any of these on its own). Think you can make it through the entire game with just that?

[MesiDoomstalker]

A psicrystal can definitely use ioun stones

Cherry picking this; the idea of an inanimate but sentient stone having quasi-animate non-sentient stones floating around it is hilarious.

[javcs]

Items that psicrystals are physically incapable of using:
Weapons - no hands
Shields- no weapons
Hats - no head
Bracers - no wrists
Gloves - no hands
Pants - no legs
Boots - no feet
Necklaces- no neck
Rings - no fingers
Potions - no mouth
Alchemical items - no hands
Tool kits - no hands
Scrolls - no eyes
Wands - no hands
Staffs- no hands
Rods - no hands
Most wondrous/universal items - no hands
Dorjes- no hands
Power stones - no hands
Psicrowns - no head
Psionic tattoos- no skin

So that leaves, what? A psicrystal can definitely use ioun stones and psychoactive skins and can arguably use armor, shirts, and belts (though it can't equip any of these on its own). Think you can make it through the entire game with just that?

And even if you technically maybe could ... would you honestly really want to? You still have negligible ability to actually do anything without asking someone else for help.


There's a reason a lot people (including me) have repeatedly called out a lack of hands/equivalent manipulators as a major downside.




--

It's also worth noting that most encounters outside of extremely confined interior spaces will involve distances of more than 40ft.
Let's not forget ... a psicrystal cannot see the sun. It is entirely plausible for you to end up in situations where 40ft perception range is woefully inadequate. Even indoors. And outside? It's basically knife range.
40ft isn't enough range to see a full double move ahead.