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

[Remuko]

Nothing here has convinced me its worth the +2 some are saying

I say +1

[Thurbane]

I wonder if a Kensai build, enchanting your "mimic weapon" natural attack, would be any good?

[edit] Never mind, just read they don't get iterative attacks with their mimicked weapon. [/edit]

[lord_khaine]

I was imagining things that can trap you, like forcecage or the various wall spells, which usually don't even allow a save to avoid them.

Force cage doesnt make you helpless.
So cant see why that would be an issue.

[Thurbane]

Force cage doesnt make you helpless.
So cant see why that would be an issue.

Well, the wording of Dissolution is a bit open-ended (bolding mine):

When a keeper is captured, pinned, or held helpless, it has 10 rounds to free itself or be freed by another creature.

...pinned and helpless are defined game terms, but captured? Not so much.

Spoiler

Show

Helpless

A helpless character is paralyzed, held, bound, sleeping, unconscious, or otherwise completely at an opponent’s mercy. A helpless target is treated as having a Dexterity of 0 (-5 modifier). Melee attacks against a helpless target get a +4 bonus (equivalent to attacking a prone target). Ranged attacks gets no special bonus against helpless targets. Rogues can sneak attack helpless targets.

As a full-round action, an enemy can use a melee weapon to deliver a coup de grace to a helpless foe. An enemy can also use a bow or crossbow, provided he is adjacent to the target. The attacker automatically hits and scores a critical hit. (A rogue also gets her sneak attack damage bonus against a helpless foe when delivering a coup de grace.) If the defender survives, he must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + damage dealt) or die.

Delivering a coup de grace provokes attacks of opportunity.

Creatures that are immune to critical hits do not take critical damage, nor do they need to make Fortitude saves to avoid being killed by a coup de grace.

Spoiler

Show

Pinned

Held immobile (but not helpless) in a grapple.

Still, with immunity to mind-affecting effects, sleep, paralysis, subdual damage, ability damage and ability drain, the circumstances in which you are rendered helpless should be fairly limited.

I guess it all depends on how a DM interprets you being "captured".

[Blue Jay]

Force cage doesnt make you helpless.
So cant see why that would be an issue.

Dissolution is triggered when you're "captured, pinned or helpless." I don't really know if forcecage or wall of ice (in dome shape) would meet the conditions as intended by the writers, but if your DM said you were "captured" when forcecage was cast over you, I'm not sure you'd really be able to argue with it (except on grounds of "you're a mean DM," or something like that).

Personally, I would just let the PC ignore Dissolution altogether, because enforcing it feels "mean" to me.

[TotallyNotEvil]

So, Undead-like immunities, Resist 10 Everything, 200 ft of Blindsight, chunky attribute bonuses and a Nauseating 2d6 CON Cone of poison with a 1d4 rounds recharge time? And those are just the highlights?

... How is this +1? It has a Nauseating Cloudkill for a breath attack, is immune to nearly every condition in the book and resistant to the rest.

All of that on top of a killer chassis with great stat bonuses.

+2 LA easily.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I missed the 200ft Blindsight. That's enough to push it up to +2 for me.

[Thurbane]

So, Undead-like immunities, Resist 10 Everything, 200 ft of Blindsight, chunky attribute bonuses and a Nauseating 2d6 CON Cone of poison with a 1d4 rounds recharge time? And those are just the highlights?

... How is this +1? It has a Nauseating Cloudkill for a breath attack, is immune to nearly every condition in the book and resistant to the rest.

All of that on top of a killer chassis with great stat bonuses.

+2 LA easily.

Huh, I had missed that that the poison was a cone - I had assumed it to be a single target ranged touch. Wow. Definitely standing by +2 then...

Also, is it blind, or not? Fluff says they have no eyes, yet they specifically get 60 ft. Darkvison on top of their Blindsight and Scent.

[danielxcutter]

Huh, I had missed that that the poison was a cone - I had assumed it to be a single target ranged touch. Wow. Definitely standing by +2 then...

Also, is it blind, or not? Fluff says they have no eyes, yet they specifically get 60 ft. Darkvison on top of their Blindsight and Scent.

Hmm, that might be an oversight... I think they can see up to 60 ft. in general, not including Blindsight, in monochrome. No colors, but probably enough to get by most of the time when adventuring.

[Blue Jay]

Hmm, that might be an oversight... I think they can see up to 60 ft. in general, not including Blindsight, in monochrome. No colors, but probably enough to get by most of the time when adventuring.

The "Ecology of the Keeper" article from Dragon #353 says they lack eyes, but that it apparently doesn't impede their vision in anyway. The article obfuscates everything in an effort to enhance the "mystery" of the keepers, but it does postulate that they must have some kind of supernatural "not-vision" that's basically vision without visual vulnerabilities, or something like that. Personally, I think the writer just recognized the Blind/Darkvision contradiction and ran with it.

[Lapak]

So, Undead-like immunities, Resist 10 Everything, 200 ft of Blindsight, chunky attribute bonuses and a Nauseating 2d6 CON Cone of poison with a 1d4 rounds recharge time? And those are just the highlights?

... How is this +1? It has a Nauseating Cloudkill for a breath attack, is immune to nearly every condition in the book and resistant to the rest.

All of that on top of a killer chassis with great stat bonuses.

+2 LA easily.

Yeah, I have to agree with this. The dissolution is one of those 'incredibly rough if applied/targeted, non-issue if it isn't' statuses, so I'm not taking that into account, but the bonuses these guys get are pretty notable. Add another +2 vote.

[Unavenger]

+2s for the +2 god!

[Thurbane]

The "Ecology of the Keeper" article from Dragon #353 says they lack eyes, but that it apparently doesn't impede their vision in anyway. The article obfuscates everything in an effort to enhance the "mystery" of the keepers, but it does postulate that they must have some kind of supernatural "not-vision" that's basically vision without visual vulnerabilities, or something like that. Personally, I think the writer just recognized the Blind/Darkvision contradiction and ran with it.

Interesting - good to know. I had no idea there was an ecology article for these weirdos!

As a DM, I'm not entirely sure these guys are a great CR 7 encounter - they have a lot of resistances, but not sure how much they would challenge a level appropriate party? Monsters with CR greater than their HD usually need significant magical powers or similar to be a threat.

[danielxcutter]

Oh hey, their mimicked weapons don’t get iteratives. Bummer.

[Inevitability]

Clearly, I underestimated the LA here. Ah well, that's what community feedback is for. :P

+1: 7 votes
+2: 11 votes

[Emperor Tippy]

Clearly, I underestimated the LA here. Ah well, that's what community feedback is for. :P

+1: 7 votes
+2: 11 votes

It's either a top tier +1 or a solid +2 (or a weak +3).

Given the significant list of immunities (it's actually about the most complete immunity list of pretty much anything around that ECL range), I would incline more to the +2 LA.

[Inevitability]

Kelp Angler

Plant monsters: aquatic edition.

At first glance, the kelp angler looks like a pretty typical plant monster, but it's actually got a few neat tricks up on its sleeve! A pity they have those 11 RHD, though...

Ability scores are, surprise surprise, skewed towards constitution and strength, with -4 intelligence being the only penalty. Kelp anglers have all the helpful immunities plants get, fire resistance 20 (how often will someone cast a fire spell on submerged monsters?), immunity to cold and bludgeoning (!) damage, and regeneration 4 that's only overcome by acid damage. The anglers also get 100 ft. blindsight, though they surprisingly have normal sight too. Finally, +10 Hide is somewhat useful, and it's one of your two good class skills so you might as well invest in that.

Offensively, anglers have four tendrils (basically equal to longswords in damage), that get Improved Grab but no other interesting bonuses. They also have a few SLAs: 3/day Entangle and Dispel Magic are neat, and 1/day Confusion can come in handy, but none of it is ridiculously powerful.

There are, of course, a number of issues with this character concept. The issues with item slots and limbs are obvious, and kelp anglers are fully aquatic to boot. The latter is less of a problem than it might seem, though: with its 20 ft. land speed it's actually not unthinkable to have the cleric cast Air Breathing once and have it move along for the day (or until some foe casts Dispel Magic).

At 11 RHD, the cost of playing a kelp angler is steep, being practically playable requires jumping through some hoops, and you don't get a lot in return (Regeneration is cool I guess). -0 LA, though with niche viability in an aquatic campaign.

[Efrate]

-0. Too many caveats be it limbs, air breathing, speech. It's okay but not good enough to make up for 11 plant HD.

[Thurbane]

-0. Too many caveats be it limbs, air breathing, speech. It's okay but not good enough to make up for 11 plant HD.

Agreed. Mark me down for LA -0.

[Blue Jay]

I think I'm also voting LA -0 for the kelp angler. I have a strange fondness for this monster, but it I don't think it does enough useful things (and doesn't do them well enough) to make it to LA +0.

For a long time, I could have sworn that this creature had an extended reach, but it doesn't even have the usual reach of a tall creature. That makes me sad, because the picture looks like something that has a long reach.

[Emperor Tippy]

Plant HD are pretty meh and it doesn't have any extra nice abilities to compensate for 11 of them.

LA -0.

Honestly, probably more like -2 or -3 if we were going with negative numbers.

[Temotei]

Easy LA -0. It's a pretty decent wild shape form, but playing one straight up is less than decent.

[Dimers]

Ability scores and reach are disappointing for a Large creature at all, and much more so for an 11-HD Large creature. I'm still voting LA +0, though. I can't see as this is worse than a human barbarian. It's much tougher and harder to stop, of course. The four natural attacks, SLAs, and bonuses to both Hide and Move Silently give it something to do besides hope to sponge up damage. I expect most GMs would be pretty liberal in determining how well a tendril can manipulate stuff. Item slots and speech are the only serious downsides. Well, there's the whole aquatic thing, but I always take it as a given that a GM will only approve a monster if there's some way it can work in the adventure's environment.

Incidentally, the tendrils aren't as good as a longsword -- the crit range comes from Improved Crit feat (for which it wouldn't have qualified the last time it gained a feat, but whatever).

[Caelestion]

With fronds like those, who needs anemones?

[Batcathat]

With fronds like those, who needs anemones?

This might be the worst pun that has ever literally made me laugh out loud.

[Thurbane]

With fronds like those, who needs anemones?

This might be the worst pun that has ever literally made me laugh out loud.

I agree - truly one for the pun hall of fame!

[danielxcutter]

What the hells are you -

Oh. Oh my god. Goddamnit.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Yup. -0 from me too. Plant type is cool. Plant HD are in the annoying "worse cleric" hit dice category that dominates monsters (pun not intended). Not much there to overcome that hurdle either.

[Caelestion]

This might be the worst pun that has ever literally made me laugh out loud.

I agree - truly one for the pun hall of fame!

I certainly didn't invent it, but half of comedy is timing.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Water you all so shocked by?