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

[ZamielVanWeber]

Put me down for +0 for both, no asterix. An epic character having reliable access to a powerful spell without its mitigating factor almost seems par for the course for the shenanigans of epic.

[Mike Miller]

I, too, don't feel the need for an asterisk. +0 for both

[liquidformat]

Honestly at ECL 18 and 22 these things feel a little... Underwhelming? Even with time stop and wish I find myself leaning towards -0 for both. Maybe it is because they have nowhere to go? I feel like Quarut is perfectly playable at 18, but no clue what to put on it at 19 and 20 and at 21 I am comfortable with -0. Varakhut even with all its SLAs feels somehow lagging behind other characters at epic level too.

Heck screw it I am just going -0 LA for both

[ExLibrisMortis]

Honestly at ECL 18 and 22 these things feel a little... Underwhelming? Even with time stop and wish I find myself leaning towards -0 for both. Maybe it is because they have nowhere to go? I feel like Quarut is perfectly playable at 18, but no clue what to put on it at 19 and 20 and at 21 I am comfortable with -0. Varakhut even with all its SLAs feels somehow lagging behind other characters at epic level too.

Heck screw it I am just going -0 LA for both

I feel the same way.

[Random Sanity]

Not enough beat in the stick to match up to a high-level martial, and the spell-likes, while handy, do not measure up to a high-level caster. -0

[Thurbane]

Honestly at ECL 18 and 22 these things feel a little... Underwhelming? Even with time stop and wish I find myself leaning towards -0 for both. Maybe it is because they have nowhere to go? I feel like Quarut is perfectly playable at 18, but no clue what to put on it at 19 and 20 and at 21 I am comfortable with -0. Varakhut even with all its SLAs feels somehow lagging behind other characters at epic level too.

Heck screw it I am just going -0 LA for both

Not enough beat in the stick to match up to a high-level martial, and the spell-likes, while handy, do not measure up to a high-level caster. -0

Mark me down for LA -0 for both as well. If I see persuasive arguments otherwise, I may re-assess.

[Dimers]

I'm comparing both against full casters -- say, a sorcerer or favored soul, since their repetoire is limited. Quarut is definitely a +0; without getting into atypically high optimization, they can certainly contribute a fair share in a level 18 party. Varakhut, I'm not so sure about. A level 22 full caster should be able to do so much more than this. I'll go ahead and say +0 there too, since limited wish and wish do provide some flexibility. It's kinda a disappointing +0, but it's hardly unplayable.

So, LA +0 for both.

Neither has much of a way to progress, and my answers might change to -0 if I knew the campaign would be, say, four levels higher than the inevitable's HD. But as-is? They're fine.

[danielxcutter]

Advancement potential has always been a factor in LA assignment, so having pretty much none whatsoever is... bad.

Also I dunno what to compare these to, really. On the one hand, Wish is powerful, stronger than a lot of things Warlocks or Dragonfire Adepts can do. On the other hand, the SLAs don’t synergize that well, and there aren’t a whole lot of them, either.

[Debatra]

They seem to have one major (and I'll admit MAJOR) gimmick, but that's pretty much it. -0 Though a daily Wish definitely makes this a strong -0 and I might be convinced to go up to +0.

[danielxcutter]

I imagine these were far more dangerous in 3.0e when Haste on a spellcaster meant two spells per round. Not to say that Haste is bad, but it’s certainly not as game-breaking as it once was.

[liquidformat]

Neither has much of a way to progress, and my answers might change to -0 if I knew the campaign would be, say, four levels higher than the inevitable's HD. But as-is? They're fine.

Isn't that kind of the issue though, outside of a one shot these things are rubbish?

Even at level I kind of question their viability, they don't have enough good SLAs to be very useful for a longer battle nor multiple battles in a day. I can foresee multiple times when playing as either Inevitable, you will have burned through your 1/day and 3/day spells and be left with not much to do with your list of at wills. In other situations you just don't have the right guns for the job. These things don't have the range or versatility of a full caster and don't have anything else going for them. Also though construct traits have a lot of great immunities with all bad saves anything that gets past your immunities is going to leave you in a sorry state, same with any damage that gets past your DR.

[Sutr]

Advancement potential has always been a factor in LA assignment, so having pretty much none whatsoever is... bad.

Also I dunno what to compare these to, really. On the one hand, Wish is powerful, stronger than a lot of things Warlocks or Dragonfire Adepts can do. On the other hand, the SLAs don’t synergize that well, and there aren’t a whole lot of them, either.

They seem better than nonsynergistic tier 4 warlock, but not as bad as one who actively tried to pick bad invocations. If you are worried about uses burn 4 skill points on knowledge local(some forgotten realms region) and take magic in the blood for 2 more a day. Skill points spent as cross class. +0 for the Quarut*.

I really don't see the problem with advancement for these. You either take ur-priest, divine crusader or some other top heavy class or prestige class.** I also don't see advancement as very important factor.

*I'm not voting on the other one, my actually run epic games are split half and half with level 21 and level 30. All would likely be defined on one-shots. At thirty the lack of con is a large argument against these. It can be covered by items but the extra work may make people sad.
**I'd normally also reccomend totemist or incarnate but no constitution score here.

[danielxcutter]

They seem better than nonsynergistic tier 4 warlock, but not as bad as one who actively tried to pick bad invocations.

Of [i]course[i] it’s going to be better than anyone who actively tanks their own build. Why wouldn’t it be?

I really don't see the problem with advancement for these. You either take ur-priest, divine crusader or some other top heavy class or prestige class.**

Oh who would have guessed, you can make something good by taking one of the most OP prestige classes ever printed! Wow!

I also don't see advancement as very important factor.

So you’re happy with doing the exact same thing you did five levels ago, plus whatever meager abilities you managed to scrounge with a few class levels? When even the Monks can start getting epic feats that improve their class features?

[liquidformat]

I really don't see the problem with advancement for these. You either take ur-priest, divine crusader or some other top heavy class or prestige class.** I also don't see advancement as very important factor.

At level 20 I am really not seeing how 2 levels of ur-priest is helping a Quarut in any shape or form, heck at level 28 it still isn't much help due to taking 8 levels in epic to get 9th level spells. And it isn't that they can take Ur-Priest it is that that is really their only viable choice, ToB classes are pretty useless in epic levels since there are no official epic progressions and even if these things had Con scores totemist and incarnate really aren't reasonable options for the same reason taking a full caster dip like wizard or cleric is useless at these levels.

[Dimers]

Isn't that kind of the issue though, outside of a one shot these things are rubbish?

Are we judging based on the assumption that they're NOT for a one-shot? Honestly, at that level range I'd expect a one-shot to be much more common than a campaign starting up.

Even at level I kind of question their viability, they don't have enough good SLAs to be very useful for a longer battle nor multiple battles in a day. I can foresee multiple times when playing as either Inevitable, you will have burned through your 1/day and 3/day spells and be left with not much to do with your list of at wills. In other situations you just don't have the right guns for the job.

In my limited experience, the same is true for tier 2 full casters. You can quickly run out of stuff that is applicable and powerful enough to make a difference. Learning the most broadly applicable spells would solve that problem, but it's not necessarily a thing players actually do.

[lord_khaine]

They both seem viable if weak.
So my vote is LA + 0

[Sutr]

Of [i]course[i] it’s going to be better than anyone who actively tanks their own build. Why wouldn’t it be?

Well for one the last monster wasn't so there was no debate about it. For two I also said it was about equal to a warlock picking up good invocations that were not synergistic.

Oh who would have guessed, you can make something good by taking one of the most OP prestige classes ever printed! Wow!

So you do see the problem in game design where you pay now to get more power later, because this is the reverse; Its fine now but has to struggle to stay relevant later. Maybe I've looked back an over half my game time has been spent on these supposed one shots, including play by posts lasting less than three months.

So you’re happy with doing the exact same thing you did five levels ago, plus whatever meager abilities you managed to scrounge with a few class levels? When even the Monks can start getting epic feats that improve their class features?

Why five I specifically didn't vote on the epic one. I can make this relevant for 2 more levels before the optional epic rules.

Also yes, I'm normally happy if a game lasts five levels. At possibly 3 encounters every session at once a week that about 22 weeks at best. PBP would be even longer 5 rounds x 13 encounters x5 at one post a day would be 325 days.

At level 20 I am really not seeing how 2 levels of ur-priest is helping a Quarut in any shape or form, heck at level 28 it still isn't much help due to taking 8 levels in epic to get 9th level spells. And it isn't that they can take Ur-Priest it is that that is really their only viable choice, ToB classes are pretty useless in epic levels since there are no official epic progressions and even if these things had Con scores totemist and incarnate really aren't reasonable options for the same reason taking a full caster dip like wizard or cleric is useless at these levels.

Sorry for not being clear, I meant that as a general argument against not being able to find a build for any monster. People in this thread keep saying they can't find good classes to advance a monster. For a monster with 18 hit die and decent stats its just to find a good dip. Gonna have to disagree on the meldshapers though, as you can change one of your feats to bonus essentia and get a decent skill boost/ranged option and then next level figure out a bind you want. Again though if we have to balance for epic so few things are viable its just not worth it to me.

[danielxcutter]

You literally can’t take meldshaper dips because you’re a construct.

[Caelestion]

+0 for both of them, I feel. Daily wishes and the like more than make up for any perceived failings.

[lord_khaine]

Sorry for not being clear, I meant that as a general argument against not being able to find a build for any monster. People in this thread keep saying they can't find good classes to advance a monster. For a monster with 18 hit die and decent stats its just to find a good dip. Gonna have to disagree on the meldshapers though, as you can change one of your feats to bonus essentia and get a decent skill boost/ranged option and then next level figure out a bind you want. Again though if we have to balance for epic so few things are viable its just not worth it to me.

Yeah i agree on the bit about just needing to find a good dip.
And for almost all of them, there are always the ToB classes.

[TotallyNotEvil]

Yeah, I'd say +0 for both too.

[Inevitability]

Votes: a few people simply commented '+0 would be good here' or something like that without specifying: I have assigned these votes to both inevitables.

Quarut:
-0: 5 votes
+0: 8 votes

Varakhut:
-0: 5 votes
+0: 7 votes

+0 wins out in both categories, and shall be implemented.

[Inevitability]

Iron Cobra

Are you a 12th-level dual caster?
Can you cast Locate Creature?
Do you have 20000 GP just lying around?
And do you really want someone dead, but fail in spite of the above factors?
Get an Iron Cobra! The perfect tool for the job, assuming your target is weak to manually administered venoms in a way that they aren't to magic, hired thugs, assassins with poisoned arrows, or really nearly every way to get rid of someone with the above resources!

Snark aside, the iron cobra is moderately playable. It has okay stats (mindlessness is a minor issue), only 2 HD, some natural armor, some DR and SR, huge stealth bonuses, and construct traits.

It can also contain three doses of injury poison, to be administered with a bite attack, which should be enough for one combat. It's pricy, but poison isn't half bad at low levels.

Finally, iron cobras automatically know the location of anyone whose name they're given... if their creator orders them to. Unless you're willing to come up with a cheesy level-drain backstory, that means that in any situation where this might be useful you're standing next to a high-level caster who could just cast Locate Creature themselves.

I think the natural advantages of being a low-level construct make this useful enough at low levels, even if tricky advancement and limblessness make it less powerful later on. +0 LA.

[Efrate]

-0. Neat but not good.

[Dimers]

The only interesting or useful traits are defensive, aside from that stealth bonus. And when a standard doorknob is a dire obstacle to you, stealth and defense are not going to mean a lot. LA -0, won't contribute a reasonable amount to party success.

[Thurbane]

• Medium Construct
• 2 RHD (of the one of the worst kinds, but hey, at least there's only 2).
• 30 ft speed - OK.
• +3 natural AC - not bad.
• Bite 1d6: meh.
• Poison: of whatever type you can afford, 3 doses at a time.
• Construct traits: the usual nice immunities and inherent downsides.
• DR 10/magic: not bad early game, until pretty much every opponent can ignore it. DR 5/adamantine: smaller number, but more relevant.
• Stalk victim: Locate Creature at will - presumbaly a PC is free willed and can activate this themselves.
• Stealth: +10 enhancement bonus to Hide and Move Silently - solid for a stealth type.
• SR 19: nice at early levels, but doesn't scale.
• Str +2, Dex +6, Con --, Int --, Cha -10; net -2 with two non-abilities. Obviously we're assuming you somehow get Int to be playable. Note that as written, Awaken Construct only works on humanoid shaped constructs.
• Racial skill list of two skills: admittedly decent ones.

The plus side is the Construct type and a manageable amount of HD; the downsides are a form with no limbs or manipulative digits, unimpressive ability mods, and no special abilities that really stand out.

If it were humanoid shaped so as to avoid gear and class progression issues, maybe a +0 for being a low HD Construct. As it is, LA -0 from me.

[Blue Jay]

I'm going to give it LA +0. Its abilities won't scale at all, but construct traits and those defenses are quite good at low levels.

[Morphic tide]

At only 2 RHD, the advancement hit isn't a serious problem if you can find something to go into. If you can find a useful Intelligence, the Lurk would be a good pick to potentially Manifest some basic manipulator problems away and plays right into the sneak-and-kill plan, while the Psychic Warrior runs on Wisdom and, by RAW, gives a fitting attack routine independent of limb concerns (to the confusion of how a Snake claw-attacks), alongside healing that works on Constructs because Body Adjustment doesn't say it can't, though the Power Point deficit hurts at the lowest and higher levels and the Power lag also causes issues.

Also Ardent, who's usual fast-access covers the Power level lag, and Initiators work the same as always, with the Swordsage having the one neutral mental score and the sneaky-stabby Discipline. Lack of the obvious Meldshaper hack is an issue, admittedly.

One important thing to note about gear is that your inbuilt bonuses are directly competing with items, so if you're missing out on slots, you need to ask when it is you actually need the slots to keep up. Because when your allies are using Amulets of Natural Armor +5, you can be using a +2 and have the same Natural Armor bonus at 42,000 GP less. Similarly, for characters with the standard +2 racial Dexterity in your likely niche, the doubled price for going outright slotless still gives you 28,000 GP saved on getting +2 Dex instead of the +6 gloves a normal character would need to match you. That spell resistance is a +5 armor bonus in price, as well, that you get literally for free, still being a solid quarter of the time against CL 14.

If we give a level 10 comparison point, where the spell resistance is 45% against equal caster levels, that's 7 class levels to work with, and both it and the comparison character have 49,000 GP. What kind of build can a level 10 Swordsage bring to truly outmatch an Iron Cobra with Swordsage 8, if both are aiming for save-based Strikes, primarily from Shadow Hand (as the access to Constitution damage complements Poison nicely)? Defensively, the Iron Cobra remains quite the strong man at level 10, with +6 Dex, +3 AC beyond Dex's probably-countered-by-armor +3, 20 flat-bonus HP that'd take a +4 Con modifier, immunity to a staggering amount of the stuff you'd want a Constitution score for in the first place and a coin-flip for same-level spells working on it before saving throws and the immune-to-most-of-what-matters.

At 10 in particular, both cap at 5th level Maneuvers, the generic Swordsage 10 has two more known (one of which may be 5th), one more readied, and an extra known Stance (which can also be 5th), an extra +1 to Inititive from class features to the Iron Cobra's +3 from Dex, Evasion and +2 to Reflex and Will saves, as compared to the +3 from Dex and being a Construct giving immunity to the great bulk of what matters, respectively. The +1 BAB is counteracted by +3 if we're talking Weapon Finnesse, particularly with the builds focusing on single strong attacks built on features, while skills are utterly dependent on the solution to the mindlessness question. All this is assuming I have how the Construct RHD contribute to the chassis correct. Also, there's a +3 HP from 2 RHD as Construct over the first two HD of Swordsage, on top of the +20 for being a Medium Construct...

Given the sort of edges had over a normal race Swordsage, I'll cut the comparison of what's available to work with here and say my own vote is LA +0* because it looks to take a long time to properly fall behind, and at that mostly on the back of itemization clunk and handlessness, and is honestly probably deserving of LA +2 under buyoff before DR/Magic bypassing shows up everywhere on account of that making its durability completely stupid, instead of just kinda stupid as it is for some of the mid levels from the Construct immunities and SR still being a good chance. Likely offsetting its probable damage disadvantage relatively decently if not overshooting it, but durability is usually not extremely sensitive unless specifically a high-risk game, and the fact you're unrezzable means a serious buffer's a good thing.

Healing in a magic-mart world where the item slots become a problem at mid-high levels (when the party can afford enough item power to make it a problem in the face of the SR 19 and Construct immunities) basically turns into spending on a Wand of Repair Construct for the Iron Cobra, and in one that doesn't have such magic-mart habits, a caster should be ready to handle it much like a conventional Cure-carrying list does for normal party members with a proper Session 0 or some such, and the chances of getting all the perfect items needed to make the lack of scaling relevant before level 14 or so seem spectacularly low simply from how much that stuff costs. And the DM can and usually should do some fudging to account for a party member's available item slots and build choices, if they insist on meeting item needs with direct loot, because doing so is insanely sensitive to the character anyways. You don't really need to give a spiked chain tripper Gauntlets of Ogre Strength +6, that's not what they do, they'd probably vastly prefer Gloves of Dexterity for their Combat Reflexes and Weapon Finnesse, while a Totemist claw-blender probably does want those gauntlets.

...Seriously, give some help on pinning down where it stops being basically unkillable by conventional enemy encounters, and where it properly falls behind for good. Because "practically immune to HP damage" for 5 levels would definitely make up for needing help with doors. Don't focus all your attention on "But it doesn't scale and can't wear a full set of items", give some consideration to the DR 10 and bonus 20 HP and SR 19 and pile of immunities at level two for several times over the durability of pretty much any contender bar hypotheticals with stuff like drip-feeding Kobolds to Crusaders and bag-of-rat exploits. Possibly workshop a spreadsheet for the relative worth of each item slot at a given level so we can just compare the stuff. Lack of manipulators can be filed under much the same box as a giant Intelligence penalty, in many cases, and it again ignores the prospect of being a character who just... Doesn't do those things. The party's big ugly fighter-type who already ignores most of that stuff in a normal build and campaign, even if you have good stealth and are a one-hit-with-big-riders kinda character.

[lord_khaine]

...Seriously, give some help on pinning down where it stops being basically unkillable by conventional enemy encounters, and where it properly falls behind for good. Because "practically immune to HP damage" for 5 levels would definitely make up for needing help with doors. Don't focus all your attention on "But it doesn't scale and can't wear a full set of items", give some consideration to the DR 10 and bonus 20 HP and SR 19 and pile of immunities at level two for several times over the durability of pretty much any contender bar hypotheticals with stuff like drip-feeding Kobolds to Crusaders and bag-of-rat exploits. Possibly workshop a spreadsheet for the relative worth of each item slot at a given level so we can just compare the stuff. Lack of manipulators can be filed under much the same box as a giant Intelligence penalty, in many cases, and it again ignores the prospect of being a character who just... Doesn't do those things. The party's big ugly fighter-type who already ignores most of that stuff in a normal build and campaign, even if you have good stealth and are a one-hit-with-big-riders kinda character.

Im sold on this argumentation.
Assuming the mindless bit is bypassed, then this can likely remain extremely viable for 4-6 levels. And i have seen a lot of campagns that ended earlier.
Also with assumed custom magic items being available, the lack of item slots are suddenly less relevant.

So my vote becomes LA +1.
In part because damage reduction does in fact not go out of style. Even at very high levels there are still monsters and demons with nasty claws, but no hands to hold a magic sword.

[Sutr]

It has 5/admantium according to the update booklet. Scales better functioning at higher levels but less immune to all damage. Compared to warforged totemist.

It gets Natural armor, SR, Bonus hit points, and hide move silently bonuses. These nicely equate to 4 soulmelds. Its poison is worse than the feat Master of Poisons from drow of the underdark, which is my benchmark for poison being good. Though it might be equal in actual play, depending on how long it takes to reload the cobra.

So we have to say this isn't mindless and I'd normally say +0, but its mindless, and has no hands, and is missing some magic item slots. It depends massively if we give it a charisma and how we determine its new intellegence. I think its a -0 if its still sucking penalties to those stats. If it just a 10 intellegence in point buy +0. If we up its charisma at the same time to 10 it might be worth +1 LA. I'm saying -0 as written, knowing I'd play with its stats, let it get away with disney animal stuff, and probably make exceptions to have it have all magic item slots.