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

[liquidformat]

No limbs he says. While posting a picture of a 4-limbed creature with 2 tentacles he himself points out are missing

Else. The chasses seems quite solid.
The stat boost likely crazy high when it comes to str. And with all the natural defences, it looks like this will make for as solid a bruiser as most other melee classes this level.
I cant see -why- someone would want to play this thing. But i could easily see why someone would want it as a cohort. And there LA +0 seems reasonable.
The same does apply if someone actually want to play it.

considering it has +8 bab due to how horrible undead hd are it wouldn't be able to hit anything unless it had a bloated strength stat. Looking at most 14-16 CR monsters in the SRD I am seeing attack bonuses 20-42 and most hovering around 25-28 so compared to a similarly CR'ed moster you are about 10 attack bonus behind the curb. I would say that in fact makes for a very bad bruiser also considering the Hullathion is huge its damage is on the low end with a 2d8 bite, 1d8 stamp and 1d6 tentacle. Without the ability damage abilities this thing has it is a terrible damage dealer and sadly at these levels poison is pretty terrible. Also this things combat potential is based around grappling which is garbage at level 16.

All and all this thing is an easy -0* any way I look at it.

[Blue Jay]

In terms of natural attacks, hullathoins have a bite, two stomps, and two tentacles (notably absent in the image) that deliver 1d10 strength damage poison. Improved Grab and Improved Grapple also let it use the tentacles to grab foes more easily.

The tentacles also have double natural reach, which, combined with poison and Improved Grab, make them a pretty potent weapon for area control.

Deform ... lets the hullathoin deal 1d10 charisma damage to pinned victims.

My copy says it's just 1d6 Charisma damage.

Finally, there's Exude Bloodfiend Swarm which, according to RAW, allows for the creation of infinite bloodfiend locust swarms. For obvious reasons, creating one hard-to-kill, level-draining, nausea-inducing vampire spawn-creating swarm per round is problematic. I'll assume that this ability is either capped somehow, or just removed entirely.

The flavor text refers to a single swarm, so maybe the writers were anticipating a one-swarm limit. I think that's probably how I would rule it personally too.

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I think I'll vote for LA -0* on the hullathoin. It's got some stuff going for it --- good defenses, some battlefield control potential, and pretty good minionmancy --- but I think it would be better in the ECL 12-13 range.

Also, does anyone know where a hullathoin comes from? Like, what living beast's corpse was transformed into a hullathoin? Or, is it somehow a beast that's always undead and was never alive to begin with? Is that even possible?

[danielxcutter]

I mean, I’m pretty sure Nightshades aren’t made from preexisting creatures, and I’m sure there are more.

The Fiend Folio mentions that they ‘curiously’ speak Draconic (as well as Common), so that might be a hint too.

[Dimers]

Hullathoin has a big ol' pile of defensive abilities, which would be very nice if there were something else to appreciate. Okay, sure, minionmancy can potentially provide some offense and some utility, but circumstances could just as readily make its potential undead minions pointless. The creature can't do much on its own (gahh, just look at that skill list!) and has almost no room to grow before 20th level. LA -0*.

[danielxcutter]

Okay I checked and these are apparently CR 13? Why did I think these were CR 15 for some reason?

[ZamielVanWeber]

16 undead HD is a high hurdle. The type is solid, but the hit dice are near the bottom of the barrel. To it's credit hullathoin tries its best with a number of potent abilities, decent stats, and I really like that art. However... I cannot agree to it being higher than -0.

[danielxcutter]

Incidentally, how good would you say they fight as encounters? CR 13 isn’t too bad for the abilities it has... and it should be able to have some decently powerful undead commanded as well. A pair of Greater Shadows is pretty good backup!

[lord_khaine]

You also have rather poor hit points for a bruiser. The resistances are nice, but there’s nothing stopping a martial character from walking up and cutting you down.

Actually there are. Its called reach and improved trip :P

considering it has +8 bab due to how horrible undead hd are it wouldn't be able to hit anything unless it had a bloated strength stat. Looking at most 14-16 CR monsters in the SRD I am seeing attack bonuses 20-42 and most hovering around 25-28 so compared to a similarly CR'ed moster you are about 10 attack bonus behind the curb. I would say that in fact makes for a very bad bruiser also considering the Hullathion is huge its damage is on the low end with a 2d8 bite, 1d8 stamp and 1d6 tentacle. Without the ability damage abilities this thing has it is a terrible damage dealer and sadly at these levels poison is pretty terrible. Also this things combat potential is based around grappling which is garbage at level 16.

Its attack bonus isnt relevant compared to other monsters. Its relevant compared to other PC's. Its not attack bonus against attack bonus after all.
And with a strenght of 30, then it is in fact a little ahead on the overrall to hit bonus compared to a level 16 full bab class.

Also both grappling and tripping is quite effective. And this thing got the ability score bonus and size to make use of it.

[Sutr]

Unpopular +0* below

Lets compare to a warforged totemist 16. We need 8 soulmelds and 4 binds to be playable roughly. The forum seems to think we need more than that, so I won't be proving that to anyone else. The Hullathoin has worse hit die do to no con, worse skills and better attack bonus due to strength. Undead immunities are a match what warforged get mostly.

I'd throw its tentacles with improved grab, deform, reach, and poison against any bind in the totemist aresenal. Three other natural attacks is another bind. Huge size without a damage boost is like a bind allowing grapple to work as a lot of the monsters at this range don't have freedom of movement, at least since I've been reading the thread. Finally blindsight 60ft is a bind, its a nice little thing that will save it money when gearing up.

That leaves 7 soulmelds equivalents to go: Fast healing, Natural armor, elemental immunties/resistances, DR, SR, Rebuking, 60 ft movement speed.

Seems playable.

[danielxcutter]

Actually there are. Its called reach and improved trip :P

Are you seriously trying to argue Improved Trip when you need two feats and have a Dexterity penalty?

Its attack bonus isnt relevant compared to other monsters. Its relevant compared to other PC's. Its not attack bonus against attack bonus after all.
And with a strenght of 30, then it is in fact a little ahead on the overrall to hit bonus compared to a level 16 full bab class.

Have you even looked at the statblock?! The attack bonus for the bite is only +17, and that’s with Weapon Focus (bite)!

Also both grappling and tripping is quite effective. And this thing got the ability score bonus and size to make use of it.

This is the realm of high-level, where Freedom of Movement is pretty easy to get. And grappling doesn’t work that well with only +8 BAB. Seriously, plenty of monsters have even crazier grapple modifiers.

[lord_khaine]

Are you seriously trying to argue Improved Trip when you need two feats and have a Dexterity penalty?

Despite the name, Improved Trip does in fact not have any dex requirement. So the penalty doesnt matter.

Have you even looked at the statblock?! The attack bonus for the bite is only +17, and that’s with Weapon Focus (bite)!

Im not looking at the statblock because A) i dont have it, and B) its not relevant.
I already got the information i need about its ability to hit stuff. Its BAB, and its Str modifier. I did then forget about its size modifier.

This is the realm of high-level, where Freedom of Movement is pretty easy to get. And grappling doesn’t work that well with only +8 BAB. Seriously, plenty of monsters have even crazier grapple modifiers.

Yes Freedom of Movement is easy to get. If your actively work on getting it.
But as Sutr already mention. Its only a few monsters who has it innately. So its very unlikely to be an issue.

And your not correct about the BAB thing. It doesnt matter what your BAB is, as long as your grapple score is high.
Its size bonus and racial str modifier more than compensates. Giving it a very conservative 16 base str and a +6 item gives it 42 in str, for a total modifier of (8+8+16) 32.
Thats enough to grapple a large part of the monsters encountered. Without it even being something it has invested in.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Lets compare to a warforged totemist 16. We need 8 soulmelds and 4 binds to be playable roughly.

And 16 levels worth of class features, which you conveniently decided to ignore. Plus you haven't given your "bind equivalent" for the lost skill points, hit points, flexibility, ability to go Totem Rager instead of straight totemist...

I mean, look at the Girallon Arms soulmeld. With that meld shaped, bound to totem, and filled with 5 essentia, a straight totemist gains four claw attacks with +5 to attack and damage, and +12 on grapple checks. At this point, a totemist with 10 Strength has an attack bonus of +17 (ahead of the hullathoin) and a grapple bonus of +24. That's one meld, one bind. It's completely nuts that a creature with +20 Strength is behind on attack bonus against a 3/4 base attack creature with 10 Strength! You can bind Kraken Mantle to become even better at grapples, if needed.

Then you can throw in things like Blink Shirt and Phase Cloak and Manticore Belt/Pegasus Cloak, giving you teleportation, ethereal movement, and flight respectively, all of which the hullathoin does not have. Additional mobility beats Deform and Poison any day of the week.

In short: Even if you can emulate a hullathoin with totemist melds, that doesn't mean that the hullathoin is strong enough at LA +0. What if all those choices you made to emulate the hullathoin are all really bad choices?

Despite the name, Improved Trip does in fact not have any dex requirement. So the penalty doesnt matter.

It does, actually. Improved Trip is traditionally paired with Combat Reflexes to turn your reach into area control. You need some serious investment into Dexterity to make CR work on a hullathoin, though. Not impossible, but the penalty does not help.

Also, an equal-level NPC barbarian would have +26 grapple against the hullathoin's +26. That's for NPCs, and the barbarian having a starting Strength score of 14 (increases going in Strength), and the barbarian using no size-increasing magic at all (only Rage). So I really don't think you can argue that that grapple modifier is anything special. It's just about on-par for a bruiser.

Another way of looking at it: The hullathoin's grapples are about the same as an equal-level barbarian, and since its attacks are ten points worse than its grapples (the barbarian's attacks and grapples are the same), they aren't so much "good at grapples" as they are "terrible at anything besides grapples". That's really not a good place to be in. Grapples are fun and all, but they are very much an all-or-nothing strategy. If you don't have any alternative attack forms, you're going to be sitting out some encounters.

[liquidformat]

Also, an equal-level NPC barbarian would have +26 grapple against the hullathoin's +26. That's for NPCs, and the barbarian having a starting Strength score of 14 (increases going in Strength), and the barbarian using no size-increasing magic at all (only Rage). So I really don't think you can argue that that grapple modifier is anything special. It's just about on-par for a bruiser.

Another way of looking at it: The hullathoin's grapples are about the same as an equal-level barbarian, and since its attacks are ten points worse than its grapples (the barbarian's attacks and grapples are the same), they aren't so much "good at grapples" as they are "terrible at anything besides grapples". That's really not a good place to be in. Grapples are fun and all, but they are very much an all-or-nothing strategy. If you don't have any alternative attack forms, you're going to be sitting out some encounters.

Also to further highlight this point I took a look through the MM for large and huge monsters cr13-16 most of them have a grapple mod between 29-45. Things like dire bear who are cr 7 are sitting at 23-25; so most monsters the Hullathion comes across are going to be similarly good at grappling. Getting a mod of 32 after equipment investment only puts you on par with other monsters that are going to try and grapple you, it gives you no advantage in the grapple department.

[Blue Jay]

Another way of looking at it: The hullathoin's grapples are about the same as an equal-level barbarian...

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall point you're making (i.e., that the hullathoin's grappling has some serious numerical problems); but I feel like there's a lot more nuance to the hullathoin's grappling situation than your equation is showing. Like:

• the NPC barbarian provokes AoOs for attempting to grapple, while the hullathoin doesn't
• the barbarian can't add a grapple check to an AoO, while the hullathoin can
• the barbarian can't grapple a guy from 20 feet away, while the hullathoin can
• the barbarian's grapple checks come with opportunity costs, while the hullathoin gets to make its grapple checks as free actions
• the barbarian's grapple checks deal nonlethal damage, while the hullathoin's deal lethal damage
• the hullathoin's attack delivers a poison that can debuff its opponent's grapple check before the opponent rolls to oppose the incoming grapple attempt
• the hullathoin never counts as grappled while grappling an opponent (free Greater Multigrab), so it can grapple two guys at once without penalty

The barbarian does have a couple of advantages, of course:

• the barbarian gets to target Touch AC, while the hullathoin has to target regular AC
• the barbarian gets 4 grapple checks a round (albeit at cumulative -5 penalties); while the hullathoin only gets 2 per round

But, all in all, saying that the NPC barbarian's grapples are "about the same" as the hullathoin's is pretty inaccurate. I agree that the hullathoin's numbers are disappointing, but even that situation isn't as dire as you're presenting it, because you gave the NPC barbarian a better starting stat array. So the hullathoin actually does come out a couple points ahead if starting conditions are standardized. Granted, one would hope for more than just "a couple points ahead" in this situation; but it's at least above water.

So, while I feel like you're right that the hullathoin has some crucial weaknesses, I think maybe you're being too dismissive of its grappling abilities. If you invest in grappling with a hullathoin PC, I think you will see some pretty good returns on that investment, even though the situation isn't entirely ideal.

Still not LA +0, though.

[ExLibrisMortis]

But, all in all, saying that the NPC barbarian's grapples are "about the same" as the hullathoin's is pretty inaccurate.

Spirit Bear Totem barbarian gives Improved Grab, there's a Stone Dragon stance that grants Constrict, you can pick up Multigrab as feats, and City Brawler barbarian grants IUS. Pretty much any grappling trick is available to barbarians for cheap, so if you want to compete with the hullathoin, go nuts. Plus you can go Totem Rager to pick up some tentacles with Reach, if that's what you need.

[Sutr]

1. And 16 levels worth of class features, which you conveniently decided to ignore. Plus you haven't given your "bind equivalent" for the lost skill points, hit points, flexibility, ability to go Totem Rager instead of straight totemist...

2. I mean, look at the Girallon Arms soulmeld. With that meld shaped, bound to totem, and filled with 5 essentia, a straight totemist gains four claw attacks with +5 to attack and damage, and +12 on grapple checks. At this point, a totemist with 10 Strength has an attack bonus of +17 (ahead of the hullathoin) and a grapple bonus of +24. That's one meld, one bind. It's completely nuts that a creature with +20 Strength is behind on attack bonus against a 3/4 base attack creature with 10 Strength! You can bind Kraken Mantle to become even better at grapples, if needed.

3. Then you can throw in things like Blink Shirt and Phase Cloak and Manticore Belt/Pegasus Cloak, giving you teleportation, ethereal movement, and flight respectively, all of which the hullathoin does not have. Additional mobility beats Deform and Poison any day of the week.

In short: Even if you can emulate a hullathoin with totemist melds, that doesn't mean that the hullathoin is strong enough at LA +0. What if all those choices you made to emulate the hullathoin are all really bad choices?

1. Well we could then have a talk about those class features not being that great. That the binds take up magic item spaces. Then we'd have to talk about how the NA, DR, Immunity being equal or better than what a soulmeld can do investment at level 18. Fast healing applies to full hit points. We'd definitely need to talk about guessing wrong on which soulmeld would be needed for the day and essentia being moved around. Maybe your Ellipses has more.

2. So you hit one higher attack bonus an an equal grapple modifier with arguably equal investment of recources congratulations. See other peoples posts about grapples. It's a thing this can do mostly as a free action. It's nice.

3. Magic items same way most classes do mobility. I'd actually shift one of its feats to travel devotion it has nothing to do with its swift actions.

How bad do you really think this is? I'm not saying its great just playable. How many hit die would you actually take away what would you give it to make it playable? Maybe how would you rule Exude Bloodfiend Swarm?

[ExLibrisMortis]

2. So you hit one higher attack bonus an an equal grapple modifier with arguably equal investment of recources congratulations.

So first you use totemist for your comparison, then you argue that totemist has all sorts of things wrong with it, and then you argue that 16 undead HD is equal investment to one bind I get at level 2... yeah, I think we're done here.

[Blue Jay]

Spirit Bear Totem barbarian gives Improved Grab, there's a Stone Dragon stance that grants Constrict, you can pick up Multigrab as feats, and City Brawler barbarian grants IUS. Pretty much any grappling trick is available to barbarians for cheap, so if you want to compete with the hullathoin, go nuts. Plus you can go Totem Rager to pick up some tentacles with Reach, if that's what you need.

It sounds like what you're saying is that a hullathoin grapples like a pretty heavily optimized, grapple-focused barbarian. I think that reinforces my argument that you've been undervaluing the hullathoin's grappling ability up until this point.
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On an unrelated note, how are y'all pronouncing "hullathoin"? In my mind, I'm saying it like "hull-a-THOE-in."

[PoeticallyPsyco]

On an unrelated note, how are y'all pronouncing "hullathoin"? In my mind, I'm saying it like "hull-a-THOE-in."

I've been putting the emphasis on the 'la': "hoo-LAH-thoe-in". No basis whatsoever for that, just how my mind reads it.

[ExLibrisMortis]

It sounds like what you're saying is that a hullathoin grapples like a pretty heavily optimized, grapple-focused barbarian. I think that reinforces my argument that you've been undervaluing the hullathoin's grappling ability up until this point.

That's not really what I was going for, but it's kind of what the post says, yeah. Let me try again.

The hullathoin appears to have lots of abilities, as per your list, and to exactly replicate all of them requires a decent number of feats, levels, maybe some magic items, and so on. However, the actual performance of the hullathoin can be duplicated (not to mention exceeded) very easily, without getting all its abilities exactly.

For example, you mention that the hullathoin gets a Strength-damaging poison, potentially raising its grappling effectiveness. The average Strength damage of 5.5 works out to -2.75 on grapple checks, and that's if the creature fails its save and isn't immune. Overall, you might rate the ability as equivalent to +2 to grapple checks. That's technically an "advantage" and a "special ability" that the hullathoin has... but it's still much worse than simply having 3/4 base attack bonus. If you were building a bruiser, you'd never ever go for this ability over straight base attack, +Str, or +grapple.

Likewise, you mention that the barbarian provokes for starting a grapple, can't AoO with a grapple, can't grapple "for free", can't deal lethal damage with a grapple, and can't grapple someone 20' away. That looks like five different points, but it's really only two: the first four are solved by Improved Grab (IUS + Improved Grapple also works), and the third simply requires a size boost (to Gargantuan, or Huge with a feat, or Large with a reach weapon), which is good for melee builds whether they grapple or not. Granted, when you're that big, you might not be in a place you can stand in, but then that's a problem for the hullathoin, too.

The last thing is the hullathoin's free Greater Multigrab. It's two bonus feats, and that does allow you to ignore the Dexterity requirement for the second one, which is cool. So I guess you can call that the hullathoin's advantage. It's a shame it's forced to grapple with a secondary attack for only 1d6 damage, though. I don't think that +14 melee is going to be very effective control.


My point is this: If you were building a bruiser, you'd only have to go a tiny bit out of your way to become as much of a grappler as the hullathoin--which is ostensibly full-on grappling focused--even if you're not grappling in the same way that the hullathoin is (i.e. via tentacles, Str/Cha damage, Multigrab etc.). For example, you might take one of a barbarian ACF, a crusader stance, a few feats, a dip in psychic warrior, throw in a monk's belt, or any of the other options that let you grapple or grapple better. If you're actually building a focused grappler, the hullathoin is not even in the same league; it's just a trash mob you clear before wrestling Ashardalon.

[danielxcutter]

...What the fresh hells does Ashardalon have to do with this? Isn’t he that half-fiendish great red wyrm who gets killed in Bastion of Broken Souls and becomes a vestige?

[Sutr]

So first you use totemist for your comparison, then you argue that totemist has all sorts of things wrong with it, and then you argue that 16 undead HD is equal investment to one bind I get at level 2... yeah, I think we're done here.

I used the same phrase of argument you used in the first part of your post; what about this thing. Totemist isn't a perfect class and we both know that. Outside of soulmelds and binds and essentia manipulation its features are, illiteracy, wild empathy, and totem protection.

I in fact argued that 16 undead hit die, +20 racial to strength and huge size was equal to 1/8 of your soulmelds, 1/4 of a totemists binds and 5/13 of essentia at level 16, it also used Totem chakra bind (+2 capacity) which you could only do at level 15. If you see that as something you got at level 2. If you don't see that as roughly a quarter of a totemists resources to get the same hit and grapple its clear that I'll always pick a higher LA. I'm fine with this conclusion. We could use it on every monster.

[Random Sanity]

On an unrelated note, how are y'all pronouncing "hullathoin"?

Wrong. Every time.

[danielxcutter]

Nitpick: the Totem bind (the lynchpin for much of the Totemist’s power) is gained at 2nd level. Incarnum classes in general are rather front-loaded; Totemists just stay relevant for later levels as well because dealing damage never really gets old.

Note that Incarnum builds are also quite flexible; you can pick new soulmelds the next day and have an entirely new playstyle. It’s less pronounced for Totemists, because as mentioned they mostly focus on face smashing, but you’re still rather flexible.

[liquidformat]

Wrong. Every time.

Yeah I am not even in the right ballpark for some reason I have it in my head as 'hull-a-thi-on' which is a completely different word....

[ZamielVanWeber]

I treat the -oi- as a diphthong, so it sounds like hu-LA-thoin, where thoin sounds like thoink without the k.

[ExLibrisMortis]

...What the fresh hells does Ashardalon have to do with this? Isn’t he that half-fiendish great red wyrm who gets killed in Bastion of Broken Souls and becomes a vestige?

Nothing, I just needed something with a high grapple modifier, and Ashardalon is a fiendish red dragon of some age. Seemed a bit more interesting than just "great wyrm".

And yes, Ashardalon is the red dragon who got struck down by a druid and replaced his heart with a balor. Not a bad origin story, I have to say.

I've been putting the emphasis on the 'la': "hoo-LAH-thoe-in". No basis whatsoever for that, just how my mind reads it.

Yeah I am not even in the right ballpark for some reason I have it in my head as 'hull-a-thi-on' which is a completely different word....

I say "hul-la-thoyn" or sometimes "hu-la-thoyn". Three syllables, not four. But then in Dutch, dipthongs are about the most common type of vowel (long vowel, at any rate), so it's natural to read that "oi" as belonging to one syllable.

[Caelestion]

Huh. I read it as "hoolah-tho-in".

[Blue Jay]

My point is this: If you were building a bruiser, you'd only have to go a tiny bit out of your way to become as much of a grappler as the hullathoin--which is ostensibly full-on grappling focused--even if you're not grappling in the same way that the hullathoin is (i.e. via tentacles, Str/Cha damage, Multigrab etc.). For example, you might take one of a barbarian ACF, a crusader stance, a few feats, a dip in psychic warrior, throw in a monk's belt, or any of the other options that let you grapple or grapple better. If you're actually building a focused grappler, the hullathoin is not even in the same league; it's just a trash mob you clear before wrestling Ashardalon.

Do you really think one of those options is all you need to match a hullathoin as a grappler? I'm skeptical. To me, it seems like you're not clearly superior to the hullathoin unless you've overshot the "middle-optimization" level we're supposed to be using as our point of comparison. Up until that point, I think the hullathoin is still very much in the same league as you. I don't think it would be as easy to optimize a hullathoin into a top-tier grappler, but I don't think "top-tier" is the mark that needs to be reached: it just needs to be able to compete with the "mid-op" grapplers, and I think it actually does okay there.

Ultimately, I suppose it doesn't matter that much, because I still haven't talked myself into LA +0 yet. I am debating internally though, just because it does have a little bit of versatility beyond grappling, with its good senses, excellent defenses, and decent minion-mancy options. I'm still staying with LA -0, because it just doesn't have enough of anything to really carve out a solid niche.

Yeah I am not even in the right ballpark for some reason I have it in my head as 'hull-a-thi-on' which is a completely different word....

I actually sometimes find myself saying it that way too. I figure that "hull-a-thoyn" is the intended pronunciation, but the "oy" sound always feels... hokey to me. So I opt for "o-in" instead. But, for some reason, "hull-a-THIGH-on" rolls off the tongue better than "hull-a-THOE-in."

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{EDIT TO ADD: Actually, I don't think the asterisk is necessary for the hullathoin. It doesn't sound like the bloodfiend swarm is under the hullathoin's control, and the vampire spawn created won't be under its control automatically, either: it has to expend Rebuke uses to control the vampire spawn, and doesn't have any way to control the swarms at all. So I don't think it's really a major "runaway minionmancy" risk. Also, the hullathoin's allies aren't protected from the swarms, so it will actually probably be too unwieldy to risk using regularly.}

[danielxcutter]

Is this based on some obscure myth or is this an original D&D creature?