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

[Inevitability]

Devil

I Had To See This Horrifying Old Dominatrix Clown Fiend So Now You Should Too.

Paeliryon

Depicted above: paeliryons are 18 HD, huge-sized high-ranking devils. Ability-wise they aren't very impressive: they 'only' have 25 strength, and all other stats are worse than that, with most hovering around 20.

DR 15/good and silver is hard to overcome, acid and cold resistance 20 will come in handy, and fire and poison immunity have obvious uses. SR 32 is the double-edged sword it always is.

Offensively, the devil is more interesting. It gets a natural bite attack, but its main natural weapon are (deep breath) a pair of 30 ft-long extendible fingernails that damage charisma and get 17-20 3x crits. I'm not sure how relevant these will be, as even with all those goodies the damage is still somewhat disappointing (that and it still takes up your hands) but I'd be surprised if there's no weird niche for it.

In defiance of their description (which describes their smell as 'the stink of unwashed bodies and brimstone'), these devils have an Intoxicating Scent that applies the Mind Fog effect to others. It's free, it's useful, and your allies can be made immune to it.

Furthermore, paeliryons can Belittle their opponents, which stuns them for a while and leaves them shaken afterwards. It's a standard action to use, but it's a large stun AoE that your allies can be immune to (assuming they're cool with getting thoroughly mocked once per day), so if you don't feel like expending SLAs feel free to default to it.

Speaking of SLAs, they're plentiful! Notable ones include at-will Animate Dead, Antilife Shell, Blasphemy, Charm Person, Create Undead, Desecrate, Detect Magic, Greater Dispel Magic, Hold Monster, Greater Invisibility, Major Image, Mind Blank, Polymorph Self (upgraded into either Polymorph or Change Shape), Suggestion and Greater Teleport, as well as 3/day Blasphemy (yes, you read that right), Meteor Swarm, Permanent Image, Shadow Walk, and Symbol and 1/day Forbiddance, Implosion, Imprisonment, and Word of Recall. It's not the ultra-optimized spell list of a tier 1 caster, but it holds enough useful goodies that I don't think a paeliryon player will find themselves without some relevant magic.

Right now, I'm most comfortable assigning +1 LA: the paeliryon is a solid caster skewing towards usage of at-will spells rather than a few big encounter-enders (although it definitely gets encounter-enders as well), with a great chassis and a few useful side abilities. +2 or +0 are also possible, but seem less likely.

Xerfilstyx

Imagine a bat-winged slug-centaur, but it's ripped as hell, carrying a sword, stark raving mad, and the size of an elephant. Whatever you're thinking of now: it's probably still not as bad as the real thing.

These monsters have 15 RHD, and are huge-sized. Their ability scores are considerably better than the paerilyon's: 29 strength, 25 constitution, and 20-12 in all other stats. They enjoy all the default devil abilities, in addition to cold immunity, DR 15/good and silver, fast healing 5, and SR 29. They're also immune to mind-affecting effects, piercing damage, and any harmful effects of the river Styx.

The fiends are quite offensively oriented. They have a wide range of natural attacks: two claws, a bite, a horn, and a tail. The latter can grab creatures and drain their blood, in addition to wiping their memory of the entire xerfilstyx encounter (which is certainly unique, albeit somewhat lacking in usefulness).

They also have the default devilish fear aura, the ability to trip enemies after charging them (which deals a little extra damage as well), and 10 virtual ranks in all knowledge skills (which exist for skill checks but not for meeting requirements or things like that). Additionally, they get a breath weapon, which has an impressive area and deals good damage, but needs to drain from a reservoir of drained blood (every max-strength 20d8 breath weapon takes 20 points of constitution, drained within the past day, to use). In addition to damage, it can remove all memories of the xerfilstyx encounter.

Finally, the SLAs. They're less extensive than on some other devils, but still broad. Most notable are at-will Blasphemy, Charm Person, Greater Invisibility, Polymorph (updated, of course), Telekinesis, and Greater Teleport, as well as 2/day Insanity and 1/day Foresight.

On top of all that, there's the Summon ability. Unlike most devils, there's no failure chance, it's usable twice (rather than once) per day, and it lets you summon from a wide variety of devils, up to two pit fiends. That's extremely impactful, and definitely worth considerably increasing the LA over.

The xerfilstyx is a weird and complicated monster, and I'm going to rate it +3 just to be on the safe side.

[Efrate]

+1 for both. A lot of at will goodies.

[Lans]

You missed the summoning that they put before the the stat block. being able to summon 2 balors twice a day is extremely powerful

[Thurbane]

I know this has been addressed before, but how are we ruling monsters that got updated in later books? I know Paeliryons got an overhaul in FC2, including some drastic changes to their SLAs.

[Blue Jay]

I know this has been addressed before, but how are we ruling monsters that got updated in later books? I know Paeliryons got an overhaul in FC2, including some drastic changes to their SLAs.

And the xerfilstyx was downgraded to Large size in FC2, also. With the chwidencha, I think we just stuck with the version in the current book.

I'm abstaining on the vote for these two, because their ECLs are outside my comfort zone.

[Mike Miller]

I feel like we could skip monsters that are updated in later books. After all, reprinted material supersedes the original. The only downside is needing to know in advance that they were reprinted... I actually feel like I just convinced myself not to skip them. Whoops!

[danielxcutter]

I feel like we could skip monsters that are updated in later books. After all, reprinted material supersedes the original. The only downside is needing to know in advance that they were reprinted... I actually feel like I just convinced myself not to skip them. Whoops!

Their claw reach at least was nerfed to 20 ft. in FCII, though to be frank that’s still fairly big if you’re using them, and if you’re not you honestly don’t care either way.

Honestly, I think it’s better to use the FCII version to consider them, because that’s supposed to be the official version now. And honestly, the change is so drastic it’s worth doing that - they lose their undead-related SLAs and Blasphemy is firmly a 3/day, but Meteor Swarm becomes an at-will SLA(and they have Quicken SLA for it, though I think that might be an oversight), they get 3/day Enervation and Greater Command, ability to summon baatezu(four lemures, two bone or bearded devils, or one erinyes, horned devil, or ice devil) once per day... oh, and at-will Polymorph(awesome) and Charm Monster(less awesome, but still useful), and so on.

Oh by the way, I think a Veil of Allurement or whatever that item was called would be useful for one? Either version has SLAs that benefit from it, and I think it might work with Belittle and Intoxicating Perfume? Cheaper than taking a bunch of Ability Focus feats, and actually pretty cheap in general IIRC(a bit under 5k gp, I think).

[Asmotherion]

I know that the Myrmi bit means ant (Compare myrmidons, the fearsome "Ant-tooth" soldiers of ancient Greece) "Myrmyxykos"/Μυρμυξυκοσ is the Greek word meaning "Antioxidant" according to Google Translate, although basically everything else I put in starting with Myrmr resolves to "Ant" so I'm not sure. "Μυρμ υξυκοσ" apparently means "Seaweed perfume," "Μυρμυ ξυκοσ" means "Wood cut", "Μυρμυξ υκοσ" means "Antimyx marshmallow", and "Μυρμυξυκο σ" means "Antimycyclic p".

All in all, Google translate is very helpful here.

There is a potential that ξυκο is refearing to vinegar, which is accidic in nature. Thus making it's name mean "(demon of) ten thousand acids (vinegars)". (myrmy(gi) actually comes from myryades, or 10000. Myrmygi is a referance to the nature of the ant as a coloni).

[Inevitability]

You missed the summoning that they put before the the stat block. being able to summon 2 pit fiends twice a day is extremely powerful

Excellent point, did not notice that but honestly should've gotten suspicious when I didn't see in-statblock summoning. Will update the xerfilstyx's LA to +3 in light of this, with a good argument for +4 to be made.

(also fixed the devil mentioned in your comment)

[Inevitability]

Dire Rhinoceros

That's right, monsters that aren't high-level outsiders exist too.

The dire rhinoceros is predictably not that good. 17 animal HD and a nonhumanoid, handless shape aren't very useful, especially with no special abilities other than a very crit-happy horn (17-20 range, 3x damage) and Trample. Constitution and Strength in the 29-30 range are neat, but don't redeem this.

-0 LA and happy new year to y'all!

[liquidformat]

On the plus side Dire Rhinoceros are a fun druid form to take but yeah they suck hard to play as one. -0 LA no question!

[Efrate]

Easy -0. I would like too see a shadowpouncing one though for the lols. Suddenly rhino!

[Debatra]

A simple one to cap off the year. Nice. -0

[ViperMagnum357]

Definitely LA -0.

[Luccan]

Warrior is the obvious point of comparison, so I would actually say +3

Definite -0

[Thurbane]

I haven't had much time to dedicate to the forums lately, but this one is an easy LA -0.

[Mystic Muse]

LA+4, it's clearly deserving of Epic status.

Yeah, easy LA -0, no doubt about it.

[Aniikinis]

All of that wonderful goodness for only 17 HD? Are they mad? That's amazing!

-0, any more and you're severely overestimating everything about this one.

[Inevitability]

Disenchanter

The disenchanter: destroying your loot since 1978!

We're immediately greeted with a problem: disenchanters have 16 RHD. Magical beast hit dice aren't the worst in existence, but they better come with some very good features to be worth 80% of a build. Is this the case?

...sadly, not. The disenchanter has unimpressive stats (23-18 in physicals, 14 charisma, 10 wisdom, 5 intelligence), weak natural weapons (a 1d10 tail slam, two 1d8 hooves, and a no-damage tongue. The tongue can drain enchantments from magical gear, which gives the disenchanter some temporary hit points, but that is obviously not a wise move.

Always-on Detect Magic has some use, but is hardly impressive. The ability to disenchant magic weapons that hit you is arguably a negative: not only does it uncontrollably destroy useful items, it also incentivises foes to focus on your (presumably squishier) allies.

A bit of DR and some spell resistance fail to make up for the fact that this is a gimmicky and weak excuse for a party member, that in some battles even approaches the level of 'active liability'. Rust monsters were bad: this is worse. -0 LA.

[Efrate]

Rust monster, now with magic! Easy -0. Just say no to ruining loot.

[ViperMagnum357]

Easy LA -0 here.

[NontheistCleric]

Just came to point out that 'Movanic Deva' is still misspelled as 'Movadic Deva' on the previous page.

[liquidformat]

-0 LA for the Disenchanter and for its misplaced and inappropriate tail!

[Dimers]

The perfect mount for a Forsaker! EDIT: Well, at least you have an obvious progression after the RHD ...

[Thurbane]

Another easy LA -0.

The perfect mount for a Forsaker! EDIT: Well, at least you have an obvious progression after the RHD ...

Nice.

[Sutr]

So lets compare it to a totemist

Natural armor 16 soulmeldish
Natural attacks 5 attacks soulmeld
Detect magic again soulmeld
Improved grab with constrict and drain magic are pretty bind worthy
Spell resistance is actually a soulmeld
add to that huge size and high ability modifiers

5 Soulmelds maybe 2 binds and huge size and high ability scores crippling lack of hands and low intelligence. Its a -0 maybe at 12 hit die for the stats might be reasonable but not 17.

[Debatra]

Another easy -0.

[danielxcutter]

*yawns* LA -0. Next!

[Mystic Muse]

Very easy -0 no question.

[Inevitability]

Ethereal Ooze

We've had big oozes, small oozes, oozes that drain your blood, oozes that spit fire, oozes that are invisible... ghost oozes were just a matter of time.

These amusing cubic blobs are unfortunately crippled by 12 ooze RHD. They're largely unsurprising: high strength, high constitution, terrible (or nonexistent) stats everywhere else, a single melee slam that deals acid damage, and improved grab/constrict are hardly noteworthy traits.

The most interesting part about the ethereal ooze is how they, like ghosts, exist only physically on the ethereal plane. They can manifest onto the material, but are still incorporeal when they do so. The ooze's signature attack allows it to drag material creatures onto the ethereal plane and immediately start digesting them, which is thematically fun but more than a little impractical.

The need to move into position (with 15 ft. base speed no less) and spend a standard action activating the ability notwithstanding, isolating one foe from the battle so you can 1v1 it is typically a bad idea, especially if you're a near-useless ooze. In battles with large hordes, you're unlikely to put much of a dent in their numbers, while in battles with individual strong foes you will be biting off more than you can chew (which, given the lack of teeth, is very little at all).

Are ethereal oozes fun monsters? I guess: an encounter with one would certainly be unusual, assuming the party has a way to reunite across planes. Are they playable PCs? No. -0 LA.

Next up are the monsters you've all been waiting for: ethergaunts.