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

[Efrate]

+2. It is known to be good cause it is.

[Thurbane]

I love the hilariously grumpy-looking centaur with butterfly wings. I chuckle every time I flip past that page in the book.

Half-fey template, for reasons already mentioned, is one of the few templates that most generally agree is worth its LA.

Flight, immunity to enchantment effects, net +6 ability scores; and of course, the sweet, sweet SLAs.

I agree with LA +2.

[Inevitability]

Hey, the official LA is the same as Inevitability’s estimate. Not another “end of reason, flying pigs” scenario I have somewhere in my extended signature, but just interesting.

I wonder if it’s in part because the abilities are almost strictly focused on the SLAs like Phrenic? With Half-Celestial and Half-Fiend, to say nothing of Half-Dragon, they tend to also have improved face-smashing capabilities as well as a variety of SLAs. Phrenic and Half-Fey don’t really have that.

WoTC wildly overestimates LAs, but they also wildly underestimate the power of spells, so I guess that just cancelled out here? :P

[danielxcutter]

WoTC wildly overestimates LAs, but they also wildly underestimate the power of spells, so I guess that just cancelled out here? :P

I honestly have serious doubts if they even "estimated" at all, instead of slapping arbitrarily high LAs in excess of CR to prevent PCs from using them.

Yes, my faith in them is that low, what gave it away?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Nah, WotC definitely estimated LAs. Their balance point is either the 19th or 20th level of truenamer, depending on the phase of the moon.

[Inevitability]

Half-Illithid

Illithid reproduction is an inconsistently-handled mess, but the Fiend Folio's take on it is that non-human humanoids get turned into half-illithids rather than true ones. Are they worth playing?

Let's list the features: first is a quartet of tentacle attacks (in addition to a removal of prior bite attacks). They deal negligible damage (1d4 for medium-sized creatures) but get Improved Grab. One additional grapple check lets the illithid attach all other tentacles, and if that hold is maintained for one round the opponent has its brain eaten.

Mind Blast can be used to stun foes for a short while, but can be used only once per day (as opposed to regular illithids, who get to spam it).

Ability-wise, half-illithids get +4 to all mental stats. They receive SR 10+HD, 100 ft. telepathy, and darkvision.

Finally, there's some psionic powers included, which scale with HD and range from Detect Thoughts and Suggestion to Levitate and Charm Monster. Not useless, but not all that impressive either.

The current LA of +5 is obviously too much, and I'm inclined to decrease it all the way to +2. In spite of the apparent caster focus, I feel like this might work well as a rogue: extra attacks and utility powers are never bad for them.

Do discuss!

[danielxcutter]

Nah, WotC definitely estimated LAs. Their balance point is either the 19th or 20th level of truenamer, depending on the phase of the moon.

No, I'm serious. Their main objective was caster supremacy, so they intentionally undervalued casting and overvalued physical combatants in the hands of PCs. They just overdid it and went too far.

[liquidformat]

I honestly have serious doubts if they even "estimated" at all, instead of slapping arbitrarily high LAs in excess of CR to prevent PCs from using them.

Yes, my faith in them is that low, what gave it away?

I was under the impression that there were some articles out there specifically saying the writers were making arbitrarily high LAs because they didn't want players being monster characters...

Anyways on to squid face!

I am kind of torn, I feel like +2 is a bit high for what you get but at +1 the template is too abusable by casters. So in light of that I am ok with sticking to +2 LA.

[lord_khaine]

No, I'm serious. Their main objective was caster supremacy, so they intentionally undervalued casting and overvalued physical combatants in the hands of PCs. They just overdid it and went too far.

No, in the early times of 3.0, everyone were still stuck in the mindset of 2nd edition.
And so everyone sucked at making characters. Especially the play testers. Thats all.

I mean. The druid ran around trying to slash people with a scimitar.
So point made.

[Falontani]

There are several Illithid Required prestige classes that I would assume this template would qualify you for, some of them are absolutely uber powerful as well. But I'm more looking at the weaker one that focuses an Illithid (a mastermind/spellcaster archetype creature) on melee combat. And Half-Illithid is probably a better entry into it than a straight illithid, especially if given a less overall LA (more than likely) than a straight illithid. This is also a great entry into Totemist (isn't every beatstick?) due to 4 relatively difficult to come by natural attacks that will likely stack with all but a bite attack, and I'd take 4 weak 1d4 + 1/2 str mod tentacles over a single 2d6 + str mod bite more often than not.


LA +2 leaning towards +3

[Efrate]

It's a weak +2. It is really like a 1.5 but I'll be ok with +2.

[MalsvirT]

For offense, this template allows you to get numerous attacks before they should be obtained by leveling, as well as the ability to grapple as part of an attack. The offensive seller here is the extraction of the brain, which can remove some threats that would otherwise be troublesome, like creatures with DR you can't bypass. The Mind Blast and spell-likes are an afterthought, the DCs will not scale well at all.

Defensively, you are given a powerful ability with its Spell resistance, hard to come by at low levels and continuing to be useful at higher levels, and your possibly low mental beatstick stats will be patched up and help you with some Will saves, but the lack of a Constitution or Natural Armor increase is what has me most worried.

Your skills will be nice with that +4 Intelligence, and you could sway some low level stuff once you get charm monster, but the fact that your face has tentacles coming out of it will probably keep you out of all social interactions.

I say +2 is ideal, but i'll still be happy if we settle on +1.

[ZamielVanWeber]

No, in the early times of 3.0, everyone were still stuck in the mindset of 2nd edition.
And so everyone sucked at making characters. Especially the play testers. Thats all.

I mean. The druid ran around trying to slash people with a scimitar.
So point made.

Wasn't the druid dual-wielding throwing returning scimitars? And didn't take natural spell in the 3.5 play test?

A lot of weirdness comes in with the devs highly valuing Str, Int, Wis, and Cha and charging heinous amounts for those stats. Was funny when other devs didn't get that memo and handed out those stats.

Oh yea, drop me a +2 for the half-illithid.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I'm gonna go against the grain and say +3. The template seems strictly better than two levels of Totemist for a rogue-like character (and that's normally a fantastic dip), granting four natural attacks, hundred foot telepathy, scaling spell resistance, and SLAs. Honestly I could be convinced of +4, but at that point the loss of HP, skills, and BAB start weighing too heavily against it IMO.

[Thurbane]

I'll give a rating soon, but in the meantime:

Q 486

Is the Half-illithid template in Underdark considered to be an update/replacement of the template of the same name in Fiend Folio? Since Underdark is a campaign setting specific book, does it only apply in that setting?

[liquidformat]

Wasn't the druid dual-wielding throwing returning scimitars? And didn't take natural spell in the 3.5 play test?

A lot of weirdness comes in with the devs highly valuing Str, Int, Wis, and Cha and charging heinous amounts for those stats. Was funny when other devs didn't get that memo and handed out those stats.

I thought the druid only used one throwing/ returning scimitar not two but that was quite long ago. Also from the sounds of it that druid really didn't use many spells nor wild shape, she was pretty much a gimped fighter. Also the wizard was a pure blaster and cleric was a bandaid...

[danielxcutter]

I suppose those were large factors, yes, but considering that stuff like how they shafted spontaneous casting (because Monte Cook didn't like it) or put in various trap feats (because he did) exists, I have very little faith in them. Don't even get me started on the Astral Construct nerf, and yes I am repeating points I have made several times.

[Unavenger]

I think the multitude of extra attacks and some Pretty Neat I Would Say special abilities make this +2 for the kinds of people who would want to use it - who are largely not spellcasters so much as rogues.

Although it does help spellcasters to an extent inasmuch as that the stat boosts will replace a decent fraction of the spells you lose for the LA, as well as buffing your DCs.

(Also, that NSJD must be useful sometimes even if it takes interaction with the grapple rules to set up.)

[Caelestion]

I suppose those were large factors, yes, but considering that stuff like how they shafted spontaneous casting (because Monte Cook didn't like it) or put in various trap feats (because he did) exists, I have very little faith in them. Don't even get me started on the Astral Construct nerf, and yes I am repeating points I have made several times.

Saying that they deliberately focused on caster supremacy is quite untrue though and you should stop saying it. You can read Jonathan Tweet's articles on the matter.

[danielxcutter]

While I suppose that does put more weight on the “gross incompetence” side compared to the “deliberate malignancy”, it is also true that some of the people at WotC have pulled some seriously jerk moves designed to screw over certain player choices or archetypes for no good reason and sometimes for very bad ones.

I can accept that much of the imbalance is from getting balance wrong or flawed ideas. It’s just that some were deliberate middle fingers.

[Remuko]

The people saying this is between +1 and +2 have convinced me theyre correct, and I like to err on the side of playability, and thus lower LA

My vote is: +1

[ExLibrisMortis]

Although it does help spellcasters to an extent inasmuch as that the stat boosts will replace a decent fraction of the spells you lose for the LA [...]

I agree with the LA of +2, and I agree that this is mainly a template for non-casters. That said, I want to elaborate on this quote, and show the math again, because I feel that +4 to a casting stat compensates less than one might think, and I think it's reasonably common for people to overestimate the utility of +4 to a casting stat on a template with positive LA.


First, note that when trading LA for +casting stat, you gain a bonus to DCs, but you also lose caster levels. In the case of the half-illithid, you lose two caster levels, and gain +2 to DCs.
Second, note that when trading LA for +casting stat, you lose access to your highest level of spells at least part of the time. In the case of the half-illithid, you're always a full spell level behind.
Third, note that higher-level spells have higher DCs. Effectively, a half-illithid wizard is behind two caster levels and only gains +1 effective DC, due to being behind a full spell level. Even worse, this lost caster and spell level applies all the time, even to spells that didn't have a save DC to begin with! If you were being dramatic, you might say that, in terms of boosting save DC, half-illithid is only about as good as Spell Focus, which you could probably have gottent if you hadn't just lost two levels to LA.


Now, for the spell slots. Ignoring DC/CL and the ability to get new effects with higher-level spells, let's just look at "total spell levels" (per day, that is). Let's compare a human wizard to a half-illithid wizard. Both are specialists without ACFs, and both have the same Intelligence score before racial adjustments. I'm just going to give TSL without cantrips for a human wizard of various ECLs versus a half-illithid human wizard of the same ECL. I'll be looking at ECL 3-4 with 18 Intelligence, ECL 7-8 with 20 Intelligence, ECL 11-12 with 24 Intelligence, ECL 15-16 with 28 Intelligence, and ECL 19-20 with 34 Intelligence (these are the pre-racial scores).

ECL 3: 10/4
ECL 4: 13/5

ECL 7: 41/25
ECL 8: 48/33

ECL 11: 100/80
ECL 12: 111/89

ECL 15: 188/164
ECL 16: 203/177

ECL 19: 299/289
ECL 20: 316/306

As you can see, a half-illithid never has more TSL than a straight wizard. For the most part, they are significantly behind, only drawing close to level when the human wizard runs out of spell levels to discover. A half-illithid at ECL 11 would need another +12 Intelligence to equal the straight wizard in total spell levels per day (going from 28 to 40 Intelligence, they'd get two extra slots at level 1-3, and one extra slot at level 4-5, totalling 21 spell levels), though they'd be pretty lopsided casters at this point (low CL, huge DCs, spell slots biased towards low-level spells). Now, half-illithid obviously have a bunch of other features to the point that they're not a casting template, so they don't need a buff to stay at LA +2, but it's important to note how little that +4 casting stat really helps.


All that brings me to this: my general rule regarding LA/casting stat tradeoffs. Simply put: in the absence of other features, assume about 8 points of casting stat for one point of LA. That way, you're not behind in TSL, and the higher save DCs compensate for any lost spell levels, caster levels, feats, ability increases, and so on.

[Thurbane]

Acyually, went back and checked, the Underdark version doesn;t change as much as I thought it did. Basically the only significant difference is it can be applied to any corporeal creature. Interestingly, that book omits an LA adjustment.

Anyhow, here's my assessment:

• +1 natural AC: meh.
• 4 tentacle attacks (lose bite): not bad.
• Mind blast: it's a solid attack, but only 1/day.
• Improved grab/extract: if you focus on grappling, you call pull out your enemies brains.
• PLAs: detect thoughts 3/day, suggestion 3/day, levitate 3/day, charm monster 1/day - nice, but not game changing.
• Darkvision: meh.
• SR: 10 + HD - good, especially as it scales enough to stay relevant.
• Telepathy 100 ft: nice, and opens up Mindsight.
• Int +4, Wis +4, Cha +4: net +12. Nice.

I'm on the fence about this, on the border between +2 and +3. I think I'll vote LA +2 at this time.

[Sutr]

+3 erring on the side of playable not optimal.

[Inevitability]

+2 seems to be favored here, so I'll go with that. Half-trolls are up next!

[Inevitability]

Half-Troll

Not to be confused with the playable race.

As fair as templates go, half-troll is pretty okay. It offers a short list of features, so I'll just go over them all.

Ability-wise, the template grants large bonuses to Strength and Constitution, and a smaller boost to Dexterity, offset by -2 intelligence and charisma.

Natural armor is increased by 4, and a claw/claw/bite trio of natural attacks is obtained as well. Hitting with two claws in a turn additionally allows for rend damage, but I'm not sure how many PCs will choose to forgo weapons.

Finally, the template grants Fast Healing 5 and Scent.

I'm somewhat uncomfortable giving all this +1 LA, so +2 it is. It might be on the weak side, but it should be more than playable (especially when you consider Primordial Giant cheese).

[No brains]

Isn't half-troll the template that ties the Emerald Legion together? There's more than Primordial cheese on this template.

[Thurbane]

Here's my 2 coppers:

Half-troll Template

• Type changes to giant: which presumably comes with MWP and low-light vision.
• +4 natural AC: not horrible.
• 2 claws and a bite: not bad in the right build.
• Rend: in a natural weapon build, free damage.
• Fast healing 5: again, I tend to value FH more than many here, but this is a solid ability.
• Scent: always nice.
• Str +6, Dex +2, Con +6, Int -2, Cha -2: net +10. The small to Int is annoying, but you are eligible for Primordial if you want to go down that road.

Decent for any melee type, particularly if you can focus on natural weapons.

I'll agree with LA +2 for now. Not an overly strong LA +2, but a little strong for LA +1.

[Caelestion]

Yes, it certainly couldn't be less than LA +2 and definitely counts as "nice things for martials".

[lord_khaine]

First, note that when trading LA for +casting stat, you gain a bonus to DCs, but you also lose caster levels. In the case of the half-illithid, you lose two caster levels, and gain +2 to DCs.
Second, note that when trading LA for +casting stat, you lose access to your highest level of spells at least part of the time. In the case of the half-illithid, you're always a full spell level behind.
Third, note that higher-level spells have higher DCs. Effectively, a half-illithid wizard is behind two caster levels and only gains +1 effective DC, due to being behind a full spell level. Even worse, this lost caster and spell level applies all the time, even to spells that didn't have a save DC to begin with! If you were being dramatic, you might say that, in terms of boosting save DC, half-illithid is only about as good as Spell Focus, which you could probably have gottent if you hadn't just lost two levels to LA.

I disagree with this conclusion. The ½ illithid might lose access to a tier of spells.
But all the other, more numerous spells it has is still cast at +2 difficulty.