The LA-assignment thread VIII: Way Too Much For Vampirism

[No brains]

I'm not certain about the exact wording of the rule, but couldn't warblade levels count? Don't they have an effective fighter level when qualifying for stuff? I don't THINK it typically works for templates, but we're deep in DM gray area as it stands assigning LAs.

[Caelestion]

I didn't make my vote clear earlier, so LA: +1.

[Blue Jay]

While I don't see think this template is particularly attractive to its target audience (i.e., melee characters), I don't think it's a good idea to give this a non-positive LA: undead immunities have a pretty big impact on the game from the DM's perspective, and they're especially influential in the early game (which is where I usually focus for my ratings). So, I'm voting for LA +1 for the Swordwraith template.

The two levels of fighter can be a drag in high-op games, but not so much in low- or mid-op games. So, human fighter 2 vs human swordwraith fighter 2... yes, hit points can be a problem for undead. But then, undead immunities cover you as well as or better than Iron Heart Surge, the DR is going to be very useful early in the game (though obviously not so much later in the game), and the Turn Resistance is a bit of a buffer against your new weakness to turning.

Templates only check eligibility when gained, so you might be able to retrain fighter levels after gaining the template?

My personal opinion is that post-hoc retraining is more of a high-op gimmick than a standard optimization tactic, so I don't really factor this kind of thing in to my ratings. Of course, I'm not the authority on what is and what isn't "standard optimization tactics," so that's just one guy's opinion.

[Debatra]

I'm not certain about the exact wording of the rule, but couldn't warblade levels count? Don't they have an effective fighter level when qualifying for stuff? I don't THINK it typically works for templates, but we're deep in DM gray area as it stands assigning LAs.

Only for feats.

[liquidformat]

yeah, I'm also having trouble seeing why this would be a +0. Afaik can tell this is a net positive. losing con to HD means you're losing some hp, but it also means you've got more attribute points to spend elsewhere because you can safely dump con. Taking this on something that goes swordsage or similar should result in an hp gain, not a loss, let alone the extra points you can put in other stats, the skill bonuses and the strength damage effect, which I'm sure you could optimize around if you wanted to. And then there's the undead immunities. The only thing holding it back are the two fighter levels, but that's not that big of a sacrifice on a martial initiator or similar.

This feels between +1 and +2 for me. Voting LA +1 for now.

You are over looking a couple big factors in your analysis, first off not all games are point buy so you won't always be able to completely dump con when creating a character. Second this is one of those templates like lich where I think it would often be acquired mid game rather than at character creation in which case you really have to compare having a decent con mod to now loosing it and in many cases for a melee martial character this means a decent loss to hp. I can see an argument for +1 but by the time you also have to take at least two fighter levels I don't think it is worth 1 LA. Also note no where does it say just two fighter levels this is left to a DM's discretion and therefore could be more than two fighter levels...

[danielxcutter]

You are over looking a couple big factors in your analysis, first off not all games are point buy so you won't always be able to completely dump con when creating a character. Second this is one of those templates like lich where I think it would often be acquired mid game rather than at character creation in which case you really have to compare having a decent con mod to now loosing it and in many cases for a melee martial character this means a decent loss to hp. I can see an argument for +1 but by the time you also have to take at least two fighter levels I don't think it is worth 1 LA. Also note no where does it say just two fighter levels this is left to a DM's discretion and therefore could be more than two fighter levels...

A DM arbitrarily forcing you to take more than the bare minimum for a prestige class would not be an objective evaluation for it and neither is making someone roll for their stats in order. But yeah, I don't really see how much better this is than Necropolitan.

[Inevitability]

LA for the spooky swordsman:

+0: 4 votes
+1: 5 votes
+2: 1 vote

+1 wins out by a small margin, LA will be updated, next monster will be up soon.

[Inevitability]

Terlen

I was going to make a joke about these things being incapable of breathing water, but it turns out that's intentional. Monster design, am I right?

Anyway, the Terlen has the expected package of traits. Okay-ish physical stats, four magical beast RHD, a moderately powerful bite, some quirky movement modes, and a fair deal of single-minded special traits.

Said special traits: the familiar Improved Grab (which, amusingly, seems to be copypasted over from the fhorge), combined with Worry (deal one bite's worth of damage to a grabbed opponent each round), and Ambush (deal double damage on charges against flat-footed opponents). I'm not sure how relevant the last one will be, but it's a nice damage boost at least.

Amusingly, Terlens have a +8 bonus on Hide checks 'because of their natural camouflage', but it isn't actually restricted to any environment. Based on this, we can either conclude that a solid gray body is great at blending in with desert sands or that this shark is chameleonic on top of everything.

Medium size, mediocre stats, and an utter lack of usable limbs sadly do not make up for various movement options. -0 LA, get one as a mount though.

[danielxcutter]

I have a feeling that you'd have a better way of getting a flying shark mount besides a Terlen, anyways. LA -0.

[Thurbane]

Fast as a shark he'll cut out of the dark

Aside from the novelty value of being a flying shark, this doesn't make for a great PC. Awful mental stats, no manipulative digits, and 4 HD; flight, decent physical stats and some special bite based attacks aren't really enough to salvage it. LA -0 from me.

[Efrate]

I imagine a -0 would be fine here.

[Random Sanity]

In Soviet Russia, shark jumps you. (Someone had to say it.)

Concur with -0. Takes more than a meme to make a viable PC.

[danielxcutter]

In Soviet Russia, shark jumps you. (Someone had to say it.)

Concur with -0. Takes more than a meme to make a viable PC.

You mean Azure City?

[liquidformat]

I have one word for all you Terlen haters out there...Ternado!

Yeah -0 LA seems reasonable..

[Inevitability]

Terror Bird

Murder ostriches: now with extra gore!

Terror birds are 7 RHD animals (not even magical beasts), with Large size, reasonable stats (if you don't care about intelligence, that is), no natural attacks other than a single weak bite and no special abilities other than, guess what, Improved Grab. Before you get too excited, it obviously only works on Small and smaller creatures.

-0 for these, not even worth it as mounts.

[Thurbane]

Easy LA -0 for this savage ostrich.

Axebeaks make better Chocobos anyway.

[Efrate]

-0. Animals need phenomenal stats for HD to ever be worthwhile.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Easy LA -0 for this savage ostrich.

Axebeaks make better Chocobos anyway.

Thanks to Drag Mag Chocobos are the best Chocobos

[Blue Jay]

Really fascinating real-life animal, but too many hit dice in the game version to be interesting. LA -0 for the terror bird.

[danielxcutter]

...Why was this book called Fiend Folio again? Half of these aren't even extraplanar!

[liquidformat]

-0. Animals need phenomenal stats for HD to ever be worthwhile.

alternatively having few RHD (1-3), Either way Terror Bird leaves much to be desired and Axebeak is a better choice for the same architype -0 LA.

[Random Sanity]

...Why was this book called Fiend Folio again? Half of these aren't even extraplanar!

Maybe they had one as a ghostwriter?

[Inevitability]

Thunder Worm

48 RHD? Screw this, we're doing the magic lizards today.

(-0 LA)

[Inevitability]

Ti-Khana

Ti-Khanas are reptillian creatures (lizards, dinosaurs, snakes, and reptillian animals/magical beasts, to be precise) that have been altered by twisted experiments and got all sorts of cool powers from it instead of the things you'd realistically get from twisted experiments.

A creature who takes this template becomes a magical beast, which isn't too notable but better than animal types (random thought: could you realistically apply this template to an undead dinosaur and turn it living again? It's not explicitly inherited). It gets a small natural armor bonus, a potential increase in bite damage, and constitution-damaging poison. Furthermore, the creature gets spell resistance (interestingly based on CR, not HD), a small boost to dexterity and intelligence, and several psionic abilities.

Said abilities range from the mundane but useful (Detect Poison at-will) to the niche (turning into a tiny-to-large viper) to the interesting (producing a Yuan-Ti style Aversion effect on a failed save, but it applies to ti-khana creatures in addition to snakes). It's quite nice as far as save-or-sucks go, and if your opponent has a few weak-willed melee guys it can disable them pretty well.

Ignoring for a moment that any chassis eligible for the template will probably suck, what LA fits here? I think +1 would do fine: a few number increases and some psionics are nice, but not impressive enough to warrant +2. Of course, granting this template for free might be just the thing to make a -0 LA base creature more playable; DMs are encouraged to consider this option.

[Debatra]

Also worth noting that the Alternate Form is as Shapechange, meaning you get to change as a free action.

That said, unless you can exceed the normal HD limits for creature advancement by size, you're changing into a 5HD viper at best. So combat as a viper won't exactly be a great idea. Your Con becomes 11, which doesn't do your Con-based poison any favors. You could have some fun being sneaky with Tiny size though.

But that's just one less-than-stellar aspect of an overall not-bad template. Agree with +1.

EDIT: Another thing worth noting: Its spell resistance specifies that it scales with "the base creature's" CR. Does that mean it doesn't increase with level? It definitely rules out its own +2 to CR, but what exactly qualifies as "the base creature" here? I know what it generally means, but this one detail may have some gray area to it.

[danielxcutter]

Since the devs understandably didn't really expect them to take class levels, it seems likely that "base creature" means "base creatures before class levels or anything like that".

Edit: Idea; Ti-Khana Battletitan as a mount. Thoughts?

[Thurbane]

This is an awkward one to rate, since (as pointed out) it can only be applied to creatures that probably aren't going to be great PC races anyway (although Shadow Asp got a favourable review as a PC race).

• Type change to Magical beast: no mention of whether you recalculate BAB, saves and HD or not. You do recalculate skills, although that won't really change anything.
• +4 natural AC,
• Gain a bite attack if you didn't already have one.
• Poison: 1d6 Con/1d6 Con.
• PLAs: detect poison; shapechange (tiny to large viper only); aversion (to snakes, yuan-ti and ti-khana), all at will, CL varying between 6th and 19th.
• SR 13 + CR.
• Dex +2, Int +2.

I'll agree with LA +1: it's an upgrade to whatever it is applied to.

Edit: Idea; Ti-Khana Battletitan as a mount. Thoughts?

Well, since it can change into a tiny viper, helps if you need to carry it into a dungeon.

[danielxcutter]

Well, since it can change into a tiny viper, helps if you need to carry it into a dungeon.

It's not just that... look at the Attacks section:

Attacks: As a magical beast, a ti-khana creature has a base attack bonus equal to its Hit Dice.

This seems to imply that if it wasn't a magical beast, the HD are changed to magical beast HD.

If that's true, a Ti-khana Battletitan would get 72 more hit points and a +9 to attack rolls, in addition to more obvious bonuses like a DC 37(!) poison. Does suffer a bit from what I call the "Tarrasque problem"(in that it's not easy to beat with conventional tactics but falls flat once even the slightest out-of-the-box idea is attempted), but still scary!

[Efrate]

Straight upgrade so I am okay with +1 here.

[liquidformat]

The thing I am scratching my head over is pretty much everything that this template can be added onto is -0 LA and I wonder how many this would change to +0 or from +0 to +1 here is a list of the potential targets rated so far, let me know if I have missed any:

Monster Estimated LA Estimated ECL
Basilisk +1 7
AG Basilisk -0 18
Deinonychus +0 4
Elasmosaur -0 10
Megaraptor -0 8
Triceratops -0 16
Tyrannosaur -0 18
Hydra +2 7-14
Pyro/Cryohydra +3 8-15
Shocker Lizard +0 2
Tarrasque? -0 48
Crocodile +0 3
Giant Croc -0 7
Lizard -0 1
Monitor Lizard -0 3
Constrictor -0 3
G Constrictor -0 11
Tiny Viper +0 1
Small Viper +0 1
Medium Viper -0 2
Large Viper -0 3
Huge Viper -0 6
Frog(Toad) -0 1
Battletitan -0 36
Bloodstriker -0 9
Fleshraker +0 4
Swindlespitter +0 2
Needletooth Swarm -0 11
Zezirs -0 9
Fire Snake Minor -0 1
FS Lesser -0 8
FS Greater -0 17
Indricothere? -0 16
Megatherium? -0 13
Viper Swarm -0 5

So looking at that list the important entries would be Basilisk, Constrictor, Crocodile, Deinonychus, Fire Snake Minor, Fleshraker, Frog, Hydra (Pyro/Cryo), Lizard, Monitor Lizard, Shocker lizard, Viper: Large, Medium, Swarm, Tiny. Of those I think Ti-Khana might be enough to bump the -0 to +0 on those but I don't think it is enough to bump any of the positive LAs up to another LA. I am going with +0 LA for Ti-Khana.