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

[DeTess]

So, do the -0 party think it’s a strong -0?

It's not that far off from being playable. Knock off a hit die and it's there, or it'd be a fine LA+1 at no RHD. But a 'strong LA-0' is a kind of a contradiction. It's definitely not as bad as some of the 10+ RHD beasts and undead we've seen here if that's what you mean.

[ExLibrisMortis]

It's not that far off from being playable. Knock off a hit die and it's there, or it'd be a fine LA+1 at no RHD. But a 'strong LA-0' is a kind of a contradiction. It's definitely not as bad as some of the 10+ RHD beasts and undead we've seen here if that's what you mean.

This. To be clear: my vote is also -0.

[Sutr]

-0 Rage is better than its stat boosts and natural armor. Illiteracy in D&D is a boon when 99% of the population can read and reading can kill you. I like uncanny dodge fast movement and trapsense more then the skill boosts. 15 extra skill points and half elf traits round out. If it had a different dump stat or that bite had something more timely I'd probably go the other way. As it is I think playing one is about one flaws without bonus feat to compensate.


I think half-elf barbarian is a fine comparison point from the guidelines which say tier 4 is acceptable not that it has to be optimal. In short I'd pick the half-elf barbarian from a power/utility perspective before this.

It's not that far off from being playable. Knock off a hit die and it's there, or it'd be a fine LA+1 at no RHD. But a 'strong LA-0' is a kind of a contradiction. It's definitely not as bad as some of the 10+ RHD beasts and undead we've seen here if that's what you mean.

I think strong -0 is perfectly valid. Some animals are just pure hit die bloat and some creatures I'd like to know how many hit die others think would need to be removed to be playable.

[Thurbane]

at -0 we have bugbear

If Bugbear was voted -0, I can definitely see the -0 argument for the Ohidian.

Not changing my vote just yet, though.

[Blue Jay]

If Bugbear was voted -0, I can definitely see the -0 argument for the Ohidian.

Not changing my vote just yet, though.

I'm feeling myself waffle a bit too, but in the opposite direction. I'm going to stick with LA -0, but I do think it's awfully close to "good enough" for LA +0. I think the ophidian has the edge over the bugbear because of the movement modes and monstrous humanoid features; so if that's where the line between LA -0 and LA +0 lies, I can get behind that. But, I still think they're close enough to be placed in the same "tier" (forgive the literary license there).

[Inevitability]

-0: 6 votes
+0: 6 votes

A tie, therefore -0 LA it shall remain.

Next, and soon to be posted, are oreads.

[Inevitability]

Oreads

Mountain dryads!

Oreads have 7 RHD, with a stat array that gives impressive (for a fey) +8 strength and constitution boosts. All other stats are also increased. They got some natural armor, a natural burrow speed that goes through most stone as well, cold immunity, and two weak slams (although they can simply wield weapons, so those aren't too relevant).

Earth Mastery is a very boring ability that typically just gives +1 to attack and damage, Mountain Dependency is worth an asterisk.

The SLAs are the main course here, but they leave something to be desired. The at-will abilities are Stone Tell and Teleport... but the latter only functions on the oread's own mountain. 3/day we get Charm Monster, Soften Earth and Stone, Spike Stones, Stone Shape, and the Transmute Rock/Mud spells. Finally, 1/day an oread can use Earthquake or Move Earth.

These spells are very focused, and more often than not have overlapping uses. In encounters that don't resolve around moving large quantities of earth/rock, I'm unsure how relevant they will be. 3/day Charm Monster is nice, I guess, but after using that up the oread will have to resort to using its sub-par skill with weapons.

For now, I'll assign +0* LA, but I'm very much considering bumping that down to -0*.

Finally, as a darkly humorous bit of lore: if you can figure out how to cast Persistent Summon Nature's Ally VI you can summon an oread that will die of mountain deprivation before the spell runs out.

[Efrate]

I think a +0* is merited here. Assuming you acorn or rock of far travel so you do not just die, I think it's pretty competitive with the SLAs. Burrow speed allows a lot of flexibility in scouting, fighting, etc. The SLAs are some nice battlefield shapers and enough uses to do one a combat with some leftover, and remain relevant for most of your career. Charm monster covers your social stuff pretty well. Seem fine advancing as anything barring pure caster.

[liquidformat]

I think a +0* is merited here. Assuming you acorn or rock of far travel so you do not just die, I think it's pretty competitive with the SLAs. Burrow speed allows a lot of flexibility in scouting, fighting, etc. The SLAs are some nice battlefield shapers and enough uses to do one a combat with some leftover, and remain relevant for most of your career. Charm monster covers your social stuff pretty well. Seem fine advancing as anything barring pure caster.

-0 for the same reason, needing 3 levels of druid on top of 7 rhd to make it playable is rough and as Efrate said advancement is good on anything except full caster.

If we instead ignore Mountain Dependency I think it is ok at +0*, it has enough useful SLAs that can keep it very relevant and I can easily see it being very successful in things like swordsage.

after reconsidering and reading through the comments I will change to -0 LA, I don't think it quite makes it.

[Falontani]

Not going to vote on the LA, but depending on definition of mountain as well as which mountain your tied to, it may not be quite as limiting as it seems. Yellowstone is a single volcano, and it's caldera is roughly 30-45 miles across. The caldera is the mouth of a volcano at the top of the mountain. It's unclear how big the volcano itself is, but the entire national park is named after the volcano so I'll use its size as the size of the entire mountain, so 3,472 miles squared, or 1.8332e+7 ft!

[liquidformat]

Not going to vote on the LA, but depending on definition of mountain as well as which mountain your tied to, it may not be quite as limiting as it seems. Yellowstone is a single volcano, and it's caldera is roughly 30-45 miles across. The caldera is the mouth of a volcano at the top of the mountain. It's unclear how big the volcano itself is, but the entire national park is named after the volcano so I'll use its size as the size of the entire mountain, so 3,472 miles squared, or 1.8332e+7 ft!

similar arguments were made for the lake/river dryad it still only covers you as long a the dm is willing and the entire adventure is focused around said mountain.

[Falontani]

similar arguments were made for the lake/river dryad it still only covers you as long a the dm is willing and the entire adventure is focused around said mountain.

Most definitely. Just saying that the area your allowed in is vastly larger than what a dryad gets from her tree, or what a glaistig gets from her river/lake. Or it might not be.

[Blue Jay]

I'm voting LA +0* for the Oread. Her ability scores and natural armor are above par. Her SLAs are pretty nice, if a bit low on variety. Burrowing is good. Inevitability was kind of dismissive about the slams, but 1d6 is actually good damage for Medium slams, and there are two of them (which isn't standard for a Medium creature); so I still think it counts as a perk.

Also, I feel like acorn of far travel should work for an oread, assuming she uses an acorn from an oak tree on her home mountain. Do others agree with that?

[Caelestion]

Except that an oread is not an oak spirit and therefore has no link to the acorn in question.

[Thurbane]

Mountain Dryad

• Medium Fey (Earth)
• 7 RHD (poor BAB, 2 good saves, 6 skill points/"level): not the worst type of RHD, but not the best either, especially if you're going for a melee build.
• Speed 30 ft, burrow 30 ft: extra movement modes are always good; and this is burrow + (including stone etc.).
• +9 natural AC: decent.
• 2 slams 1d6: which is kind of interesting, as most medium creatures only get 1 slam.
• SLAs: at will - stone tell, teleport (restricted to areas on the mountain); 3/day charm monster, soften earth and stone, spike stones, stone shape, transmute rock to mud; 1/day earthquake, move earth. Not a bad selection, although mostly all along the same theme.
• Cold immunity: decent, and doesn't come with vulnerability to fire, which is nice.
• Earth mastery: +1 situational bonus to hit and damage. Meh.
• Low-light vision.
• Mountain dependency: here's the rub. Similar to a Dryad, you're going to need shenanigans to be an adventurer.
• Str +8, Dex +2, Con +8, Int +4, Wis +2, Cha +6: net +30, no penalties, and bonuses all around!
• Mixed racial skill list, with a few pretty useless skills. There's some good stuff there, but considering the amount of racial skills you get and +4 Int, you'll probably be looking at blowing a few cross-class ranks.

Medium humanoid in form, can speak and should have no gear issues at all.

Bit of a mixed bag here: the SLAs are decent (if overly focused on a single theme), but you have 3 more RHD than a Dryad. 7 lost class levels is significant - it will massively hamper your ability to be a caster (short of fast progression PrCs), while on the other hand, 4 lost BAB will hurt a melee type. And the hit-and-miss skill list doesn't make for a great skill monkey (unless you invest in some feats to expand your skill choices, I guess). Solid ability mods, decent natural AC, and a sweet burrowing ability are all nice. And then there's the elephant in the room: being tied to a particular location. Lets assume if you are going to be a PC, the DM has given you some sort of way around this, but still worthy of an asterisk.

Due to the lack of a clear class progression, I think I'll vote LA -0*, although its a close thing. I suppose you could make a decent initiator, and if you chose Crusader or Warblade, you can still hit BAB +16 by ECL 20, but you'd just miss out on 9th level manoeuvres.

Vote amended to LA +0*.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I'll vote LA -0* too. It doesn't need much, though. One extra class level, or one RHD dropped.

[Thurbane]

If you were playing a one shot, the DM could have you be the Oread of White Plume Mountain!

I'm pretty sure there are other adventures or campaign's set around a single mountain location...

[Temotei]

If I had to play an oread, I'd probably go for crusader, but I don't think it quite stacks up to a bog-standard human crusader 20. I'll tentatively go LA -0, though I think it's pretty close to LA +0.

EDIT: Strikethrough because I've changed my vote to LA +0.

[liquidformat]

Most definitely. Just saying that the area your allowed in is vastly larger than what a dryad gets from her tree, or what a glaistig gets from her river/lake. Or it might not be.

To be fair a dryad could be the spirit of an ancient bonsai tree which she totes around with her, also nothing is stopping her oak tree from becoming a treant unlike the Glaistig and Oreads.

After looking back over the Glaistig and Dryad I think I will change my vote to -0, the extra Oreads has extra hd with worse SLAs and nothing else to really show for it. I think at 4-5 RHD it would be fine but at 7 it just isn't up to snuff.

updating original post to reflect this.

[lord_khaine]

So. On the assumption that the travel limitation is somehow handled.

I give it LA + 0
Its increased strenght compensates for the lost BAB.
It has a massive stat increase. Great natural armor, and useful SLA's.

[liquidformat]

Its increased strenght compensates for the lost BAB.
It has a massive stat increase. Great natural armor, and useful SLA's.

I am not sure what your basis is for either of these claims, I did a quick search in d20 srds of CR 5-7 monsters and the lowest I am seeing for a CR5 monster is +8 averaging around 12 and at CR 7 they are averaging around 15 with some as high as 20. Similarly I am seeing natural armor for this group averaging around +8. So no the strength increase doesn't make up for having HD/2 BaB and +7 NA isn't impressive for CR 7 you would expect to see +9 NA for this group.

As far as SLAs go they are at best as good as Dryad's SLA spread if not slightly worse and on top of that Oread has 3 extra RHD. All and all it is frankly looking behind the ball to be competent in a CR 7 encounter.

[lord_khaine]

I am not sure what your basis is for either of these claims, I did a quick search in d20 srds of CR 5-7 monsters and the lowest I am seeing for a CR5 monster is +8 averaging around 12 and at CR 7 they are averaging around 15 with some as high as 20. Similarly I am seeing natural armor for this group averaging around +8. So no the strength increase doesn't make up for having HD/2 BaB and +7 NA isn't impressive for CR 7 you would expect to see +9 NA for this group.

They are not claims. They are facts.
A bonus of +8 str compensates for having lost 1-4 points of BAB.

And i have no idea why you were looking at CR 5-7 monsters. We are not evaluating CR. We are estimating LA.
The Oread can use human armor, and so should be compared to a NA 0 human.
Where 9 points of natural armor would create a MASSIVE difference in ac between it and the other human players.

[liquidformat]

They are not claims. They are facts.
A bonus of +8 str compensates for having lost 1-4 points of BAB.

And i have no idea why you were looking at CR 5-7 monsters. We are not evaluating CR. We are estimating LA.
The Oread can use human armor, and so should be compared to a NA 0 human.
Where 9 points of natural armor would create a MASSIVE difference in ac between it and the other human players.

For some reason I thought they had +7 NA, +9 is good for 7 rhd. However, as has been said many times before D&D is a game focused around offense, having decent defense in the end doesn't help much especially when it can so easily be over come by instead just using touch attacks. Oread also doesn't have enough SLAs nor useful enough to be focused on just using SLAs all combat every combat. most of his SLAs can only be used once maybe twice in each combat after that he has to wade into melee because he has nothing else up his sleeve. at which point if not for his +9 NA and +8 con score, he would easily be taken out because of his d6 rhd, he just barely has the HP for melee combat.

And no with +8 str he isn't compensating for his horrible Bab he is still behind other front line melee characters. most standard race melee characters will have between 16-24 str by level 7 with full bab, so Oread can expect to be behind by at least 3-7 points of attack. Also he can expect to be well behind in damage output compared to ECL 7 melee players due to power attack since he only has 3 point to use to fuel it. Furthermore, he will only get his last iterative attack at level 20 and only as long as all future class levels have full bab. If not for having 2 slam attacks he would be even further behind in damage out put.

The issue with Oread is he doesn't have the SLAs, magic, or other features to succeed and has been railroaded into being a melee bruiser with a couple tricks up his sleeve but doesn't have the chassis to be a competent bruiser either.

[DeTess]

And no with +8 str he isn't compensating for his horrible Bab he is still behind other front line melee characters. most standard race melee characters will have between 16-24 str by level 7 with full bab, so Oread can expect to be behind by at least 3-7 points of attack. Also he can expect to be well behind in damage output compared to ECL 7 melee players due to power attack since he only has 3 point to use to fuel it. Furthermore, he will only get his last iterative attack at level 20 and only as long as all future class levels have full bab. If not for having 2 slam attacks he would be even further behind in damage out put.

Is there a reason the Oread can't go as all-in on strength as a normal melee bruiser? given the same investment, the Oread should always be at least 6 strength ahead of a standard LA 0 race, and probably more, as the Oread can afford to dump more because of their bonuses to other stats.

[liquidformat]

Is there a reason the Oread can't go as all-in on strength as a normal melee bruiser? given the same investment, the Oread should always be at least 6 strength ahead of a standard LA 0 race, and probably more, as the Oread can afford to dump more because of their bonuses to other stats.

Oread are 4 bab behind a full bab character. So their +8 bab lets them break even with another melee character's full bab. So they are in the hole to start with, sure they can pump their str and indeed need to but they will still be struggling to keep up in damage compared to their contemporaries especially when we start looking at power attack. Furthermore their 2 slam attacks doesn't do much to compensate for this deficiency as they are behind on iteratives. If we take a Warforged barbarian 2/Fighter 5 with dungeon crasher, lion spirit totem and wolf spirit totem, adamantine body, power attack, improved bull rush, shock trooper, and (extra rage, knock down, or second slam) the Oread's damage potential really can't compete.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Is there a reason the Oread can't go as all-in on strength as a normal melee bruiser? given the same investment, the Oread should always be at least 6 strength ahead of a standard LA 0 race, and probably more, as the Oread can afford to dump more because of their bonuses to other stats.

Being +4 base attack behind costs you an iterative and some PA damage, and delays feat/PrC qualification. That's not good. Tactical feats, for example, universally* require +6 base attack; that includes Shock Trooper, but also a lot of other cool feats, like Stormguard Warrior and Elusive Target.

Physical stats can be gotten from (draconic) polymorph or Wild Shape; in this case, we're not comparing to tier 1 or tier 2, so that's not relevant.

Dumping stats to get more Strength is possible with templates, though those might cost LA. It's trickier with point-buy, difficult with rolled stats, and (often) impossible with arrays.

Point-buys often allow a starting 16 Strength, so the oread could get at most +2 Strength over a human by investing an 18. A human with 8 class levels has two ability score increases that the oread with one class level doesn't, so that +2 advantage works out to almost nothing in the end: every fourth level, the oread pulls ahead by one point, before the human receives their next ability score increase and catches back up.

All in all, oreads can be bruisers, and considering that they're fey, they're pretty good, but that is a low bar to clear.


*Apart from Sun School, which is intended for monks, and isn't very special.

[Temotei]

If we compare to a human crusader, the numbers look in favor of the oread:

Assuming 32 point buy:

Human: Str 16, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 12; increase Str at level 4 for 17.
Oread: Str 24, Dex 12, Con 24, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 20; since full plate has a max Dex bonus of +1, put those two points of Dex into Cha instead.

Human BAB: +7/+2; total attack bonus +10/+5.
Oread BAB: +3; total attack bonus +10, maybe +11 with earth mastery.

Using a guisarme as our weapon of choice...

Human Damage: 2d4+4
Oread Damage: 2d4+10, maybe +11 with earth mastery.

Human HP: 7d10+21 (64 avg., assuming max hp at 1st)
Oread HP: 7d6+49 (77 avg., assuming max hp at 1st)

Human AC: 19 (+8 armor, +1 Dex); touch 11; flat-footed 18
Oread AC: 20 (+1 Dex, +9 natural); touch 11; flat-footed 19

Human Saves: Fort +8, Ref +3, Will +3
Oread Saves: Fort +9, Ref +6, Will +6

Human Skills: 50 points on an okay list (standouts Balance, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Knowledge (religion))
Oread Skills: 80 points on a decent list (standouts Diplomacy, Knowledge (nature), Listen, Sense Motive, Spot)

Of note, oread also gets: burrow speed, cold immunity, and its SLAs (some of which are pretty powerful at ECL 7, while others provide some easy utility; I think stone tell at will is being underestimated a tad here, honestly).

Humans get a bonus feat.

Looking at all of that, it seems like the human is pretty far behind until you look at the crusader's maneuvers and class features. Steely resolve, healing maneuvers, and Stone Power easily make up for the HP deficiency, though not the AC difference. Human can easily catch up and then some on damage with Power Attack, maneuvers, or both (and furious counterstrike helps a little too)...divine surge deals +8d8 damage (avg. +36 damage), mountain hammer ignores DR (and hardness) and deals +2d6 (avg. +7), etc. They can give allies extra turns while messing with initiative, make 5-foot steps dangerous for enemies, make enemies easier to hit, and do a few other tricks potentially.

If we look at 8th level (oread 7/crusader 1 vs. human crusader 8), the oread's AC jumps a bunch with access to heavy armor and it gets a boost to its sturdiness (+2 Fort, steely resolve 5) while gaining access to some nice maneuvers (but not 3rd-level yet, which is where stuff gets really great), while the human gets steely resolve 15, +1 Str, a stance (3rd-level, since the crusader stance progression sucks and couldn't wait one level for a 5th-level stance), and a replacement for an older maneuver.

Overall, I think the human is ahead in beatstickery at ECL 7, and only continues to pull ahead as time goes on because the oread's base advantages start to fall behind, with the exception being perhaps level 8 and a little beyond that because of the huge natural AC boost oreads have. While an oread's SLAs will remain useful for most of the campaign, they start to fall into more routine motions rather than something that just ends encounters and challenges outright after a couple of levels, and the human continually gains better maneuvers which outmatch an oread's brute strengths. However, an oread is ahead on skill points, skill modifiers, saves (notably, it gets a big boost to its Will save at crusader 2), and its burrow speed and cold immunity are nothing to sneeze at either.

It's a difficult comparison, so I think LA -0 and LA +0 both have merits. I'm going to stick with my current vote of LA -0 for now, but I'm on the fence because of the oread's utility.

[Unavenger]

I''ll take "Stacks up to a human doing their best and doesn't obviously come out behind" for +0, Alex.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I''ll take "Stacks up to a human doing their best and doesn't obviously come out behind" for +0, Alex.

Temotei's comparison doesn't exactly include the human "doing their best". It's a bog-standard crusader doing the absolute minimum a crusader could do. Since he's establishing enchmark for oread performance, the choice of a low-end t3 and ECL 8 is telling: low-end favours the oread, and so does the ECL* (this is intentional). With that in mind, you'd expect the oread to do quite well, but it doesn't impress. That suggests that it'd be quite a bit weaker than a human under circumstances that favour the human more.

If you compare to a human "doing their best" in tier 3 beatstickery, you'd have to compare to a bardsader, in my opinion--see this one for an idea of what such a character can do. Highlights include a minimum of +6 Inspire Courage and +6d6 Dragonfire Inspiration (as high as +10), White Raven Tactics, and haste. The oread can do nothing nearly as useful in combat. It needs a bit more "stuff" to catch up, hence LA -0.

(Out of combat, the oread is very good at building fortifications, which is actually really cool, but I don't know that it'll be practical at the table.)


*The level is high enough that the oread can benefit from a single highly front-loaded crusader level, but low enough that its SLAs haven't been outscaled yet.

[Unavenger]

Okay, fine, "Making an entirely reasonable character that serves as a decent point of comparison at most tables I've played at." Whatever. It's fine.