The LA-assignment thread VII: LA LA Land

[Dimers]

Yes, innate swim speed and standard notes on that. But nothing implies water breathing or holding its breath better.

Other way around -- it has the Aquatic subtype, so it automatically breathes water, but lacks the amphibious quality so it doesn't breathe air.

[Thurbane]

Other way around -- it has the Aquatic subtype, so it automatically breathes water, but lacks the amphibious quality so it doesn't breathe air.

That makes it even more dynsfunctional as a PC...

[ZamielVanWeber]

Um... oops...

Well that is a notable problem except I vaguely remember a +0 template for that?

Nope looked it up and it is (monstrous) humanoid only. Well crud.

[No brains]

Other way around -- it has the Aquatic subtype, so it automatically breathes water, but lacks the amphibious quality so it doesn't breathe air.

So you can drag it onto land and have a drowning tug-of-war.

[Dimers]

Subconsciously, I was rating the monster with the assumption that either the campaign was aquatic or the breathing requirement was handwaved. Without that ... well, it's even more of a -0, I guess?

[liquidformat]

Subconsciously, I was rating the monster with the assumption that either the campaign was aquatic or the breathing requirement was handwaved. Without that ... well, it's even more of a -0, I guess?

Outside of a mostly or completely aquatic campaign yes that seems accurate.

[Inevitability]

Aoa

Magic-eating flying blobs: because monsters that disproportionately limit one set of classes are always fun! They come in two sizes, 'droplet' and 'sphere', which are respectively medium and huge.

Droplet

Medium-sized outsiders with 3 HD. Ability scores are surprisingly neat, with +8 dexterity, +6 constitution and +4 wisdom, balanced out by -2 strength and -6 intelligence. Aoa's have a large number of defensive abilities, including +8 natural armor, DR 5/magic, resistance 20 to all energy types (except acid for some reason?), and 22 spell resistance. The latter also reflects any resisted spell back at the caster, and automatically reflects gaze attacks as well. 50 ft. (perfect) fly speed is one of the best movement types available at this level.

The problem: Aoa's are completely terrible offensively. Their sole damaging move is a 1d8 slam, they don't have SLAs other than at-will Detect Magic, and they don't have limbs. While the ability to Dispel effects on whatever their slams hit is neat, it's not terribly relevant in many combats.

Reading this, I'm genuinely unsure how those are supposed to be CR 3: the worst case is the party wizard failing to identify it and getting zapped with one of their own spells, followed by the fighter finishing it off while the others hang back. -0 LA, terrible PCs, not even worth it on niche ultradefensive builds.

Sphere

Rarely does adding more HD improve a monster's PC viability, and these are no different. Just a droplet with bigger numbers, one of which is sadly HD. -0 LA.

[Thurbane]

Yeah, honestly, I cannot be bothered with a detailed analysis of floating drops of sentient liquid. I agree with LA -0 and LA -0* respectively.

Also another monster that made it into my list of stupid names.

[Efrate]

Hey kids! Every want to play a drop of goo that has a name like a very poorly phonetic attempt to capture the sound of an old timey car horn from a cartoon from the 1940s?

Now you can! For the low low price of 3 rhd you can be a fools attempt at onomotopea that does nothing!

-0 and -0* I don't even...

[javcs]

Yeah. -0 for both, I think.
The Split ability on the Sphere doesn't make it to a *, IMO. First, it needs to bounce 50+ points of damage from a single attack through a single targeted spell in order to trigger - did the Knowledge checks fail completely? Second, when it does trigger, it creates a droplet ... which isn't going to bother anyone at level 13+.
Even if you have a friendly caster willing to blow their spell slots on creating droplets for you ... that's one if the least problematic ways they could use their spell slots.
Also, Aoa "do not speak and do not seem to understand any languages", so good luck getting the new droplets to do anything useful.

Huh. I just noticed something. The droplet has SR 22 while the sphere only has SR 25. CR 3 and CR 15 respectively.

Honestly, the larger problem the Sphere has is its Reflective Pulse ability. And the line about "magic items that have all their abilities dispelled in this way are destroyed". Making it a budget disjunction.

[Blue Jay]

I'm totally going to try playing one of these.

LA -0 for both.

[ViperMagnum357]

Because what all Players really want to do is play speechless, manipulator-less, sorta-sentient blobs that float around with less than impressive abilities; involuntarily spawning new critters that may well be hostile to you, and disjoining (read:destroying) your treasure via your primary attack. Hard pass: LA -0 and then some.

[No brains]

because monsters that disproportionately limit one set of classes are always fun!

Oh phooey. Wizards get a problem. Guess they're going to have to teleport away. Or plane shift. Or fly away. Or turn invisible. Or see the future to know they'll fight one of these. Or summon something to hit them. Or buff themselves. Or use no SR spells.

Their sole damaging move is a 1d8 slam

Or use their ****ing fists.

[Celestia]

The only class this thing can realistically play is a psion, and it has -6 intelligence. :|

[jindra34]

The only class this thing can realistically play is a psion, and it has -6 intelligence. :|

Ardent and Wilder no because?

[javcs]

Could do a Warlock, too.

Or anything else that's Wisdom and/or Charisma based that does not require Intelligence, skills, hands, or communication.
Which, admittedly, is not a particularly long list of classes.

[Zaq]

Could do a Warlock, too.

Or anything else that's Wisdom and/or Charisma based that does not require Intelligence, skills, hands, or communication.
Which, admittedly, is not a particularly long list of classes.

Does anything say you HAVE to have a mouth to breathe at table? The idea of one as a DFA makes me giggle.

[javcs]

Does anything say you HAVE to have a mouth to breathe at table? The idea of one as a DFA makes me giggle.

...
Huh.
I don't think so?


Though, admittedly, you might need to dodge the book the DM throws at you.

[dhasenan]

I'm not seeing anything that indicates the droplets would be under your control. Is that the default with a creature created with a special ability?

[javcs]

I'm not seeing anything that indicates the droplets would be under your control. Is that the default with a creature created with a special ability?

As far as I know, the default would be that they're uncontrolled unless the ability specifies otherwise.

[Aniikinis]

Part of me wonders where the inspiration for this monster comes from. Part of me doesn't really care. All of me says: -0/-0*

[Inevitability]

Yeah. -0 for both, I think.
The Split ability on the Sphere doesn't make it to a *, IMO. First, it needs to bounce 50+ points of damage from a single attack through a single targeted spell in order to trigger - did the Knowledge checks fail completely? Second, when it does trigger, it creates a droplet ... which isn't going to bother anyone at level 13+.
Even if you have a friendly caster willing to blow their spell slots on creating droplets for you ... that's one if the least problematic ways they could use their spell slots.
Also, Aoa "do not speak and do not seem to understand any languages", so good luck getting the new droplets to do anything useful.

Hm, those are fair points. Considering dropping the asterisk.

[unseenmage]

LA -0 and -0

They're not even good monsters

That they make worse PCs is no surprise.

[Mike Miller]

I don't believe the asterisk is warranted in this case.

-0/-0

[DeTess]

The big one is definitely -0. As for the small one, it could be decent as part of a hands-free non-int caster, like warlocks and wilders. On the other hand, losing three levels on a class like that hurts, so it's probably still -0, just not completely unplayably so.

verdict: -0(but not completely unplayable)/-0

[danielxcutter]

Yeah, no. LA -0 for both AoOs - sorry, Aoas.

Oh, by the way -

Abrian

Demonic intelligent animal-people-hybrid monsters, which we get one paragraph of information on and no mention in any other WotC supplement ever again. Yeah, that sounds like the fiend folio.

To be fair, there actually are a fair amount of Fiend Folio monsters that get used in other supplements - Elder Evils has a Century Worm at least and I wouldn't be surprised if there were other monsters too, for one, and I think Shackled City also uses monsters from there? Just, y'know, not this one.

[Celestia]

I don't think it needs an asterisk. Any possible exploit would absolutwly be more trouble than it's worth.

[liquidformat]

I am vaguely intrigued by playing a droplet if you can figure out the communication thing... I am thinking wilder or ardent. I think it is smarter to go psychic rather than warlock/DFA as that gets you abilities that can let you manipulate and communicate with things.

Either way they are both easy -0 LA.

[danielxcutter]

I don't think it needs an asterisk. Any possible exploit would absolutwly be more trouble than it's worth.

>.> Please tell me that's a typo.

[ZamielVanWeber]

-0 to both. Cool conceptually but I cannot see anything coming from playing them.