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

[Unavenger]

This reminds me of the fun thought experiment that Quertus made, which resulted in me using a lot of the lesser editions of these planetouched: the entire wizard team was made of mechanatrices because of the lightning healing, and I took a lesser wispling in the other party as well just for fun. The fact that those were the best races I could find was... telling.

Mind you, I'm not totally sold on the idea that 1/day SLAs are the tipping point into LA +1 - at many levels, not having the LA will just let you cast the ability anyway, after all.

[Debatra]

1/day Ethereal Jaunt is nice, but not amazing. And unlike the other Planetouched SLAs in this section; the Wispling's Alter Self doesn't scale with level. It's still nice to have, but again, not amazing.

I'm going to vote +0 for the lot. Admittedly the Wispling would still be a strong +0, but I don't think it's quite strong enough for +1. Keep in mind I tend to err on the side of lower LA, as I'd rather see a race that's strong for its LA than weak for it.

[Thurbane]

I'll do a writeup later today. I have a real soft spot for Maeluth and Mechanatrix characters.

Am I the only that gets Shyfts (FF) and Shadowswyfts (PlH) mixed up?

Also, was it specifically stated anywhere that Change Self gets updated to Alter Self? I thought it got updated to Disguise Self in 3.5, but I could be wrong.

From the 3.0 SRD:

Change Self
Illusion (Glamer)
Level: Sor/Wiz 1, Trickery 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Personal
Target: The character
Duration: 10 minutes/level (D)

The character can make his or herself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment—look different. The character can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. The character cannot change the character's body type. Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to the character.

The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form. It does not alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of the character or the character's equipment.

If the character uses this spell to create a disguise, the character gets a +10 bonus on the Disguise check.

From the 3.5 SRD:

Disguise Self
Illusion (Glamer)
Level: Brd 1, Sor/Wiz 1, Trickery 1
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 10 min./level (D)

You make yourself—including clothing, armor, weapons, and equipment—look different. You can seem 1 foot shorter or taller, thin, fat, or in between. You cannot change your body type. Otherwise, the extent of the apparent change is up to you. You could add or obscure a minor feature or look like an entirely different person.

The spell does not provide the abilities or mannerisms of the chosen form, nor does it alter the perceived tactile (touch) or audible (sound) properties of you or your equipment.

If you use this spell to create a disguise, you get a +10 bonus on the Disguise check.

A creature that interacts with the glamer gets a Will save to recognize it as an illusion.

[Dimers]

The game helpfully informs us that mechanatrices are descended from 'one of the bizarre clockwork beings that inhabit the plane of Mechanus' and leaves the specifics of their ancestry for us to figure out. Seriously, even if you throw in 'magic' how exactly is this supposed to work?

When a modron and a warforged love each other very much ... which is never, because modrons don't have emotions ...

Even if change self bumps up to alter self, the tiny and never-improving HD limit and brief duration make it frustratingly minor. I'm voting LA +0 for the lot of 'em. They'd be fun to play and they're definitely not negative LA material, but they don't have a leg up on a human.

[danielxcutter]

I dunno about the LA for the Aircraftbooped guys, but the Maeluth’s Fiend Weapon thing seems more like an encounter ability and less a PC ability. Better than nothing though.

[Inevitability]

Change Self does indeed update to Disguise Self, whoops! Let me go and fix that, and bump the wispling down to +0 in the process.

[DeTess]

I'm not a fan of something with a decent net ability bonus getting LA+0 because it helps with devaluing the core races, but I would agree that just the ability bonus isn't enough to make the wispling +1. I'm going to vote LA+0 on all four, but if I were to allow the wispling at my table, I'd probably rebalance most other races to have a similar net ability score bonus (more likely I'd either just not allow it, or soft-ban it at LA+1).

[Caelestion]

At +0, the wispling totally devalues the normal halfling. That's a candidate for level-3 buy-off (of +1 LA) if ever I've seen one.

[Sutr]

I'm joining the last 2 people +0/+0/+1/+1. This thread makes me support LA buyoff more and more though. I\

[Blue Jay]

I'm feeling unsure again, but I think I'll err on the low side this time, and vote LA +0 for all four Planetouched.

[Unavenger]

It's a +0 from me. (For all of them)

[Inevitability]

It seems that +0 across the board is favored, LAs will be updated!

[Inevitability]

Quth-Maren

Because everything in the underdark absolutely, positively, wants you dead.

Quth-maren are medium-sized undead with middling stats (16 strength is the highest it gets), 10 RHD, two weak slams (albeit with the option to wield weapons, I'd presume), and a couple interesting special abilities.

Said special abilities first and foremost include its acid immunity, fire and electricity resistance, fast healing 4, turn resistance, and low natural armor boost. Offensively, the QM has Acid Blood (deals 1d6 acid damage to anything that hits it with a natural attack or is hit by its slam), the ability to spit said blood as a ranged weapon (not very impressive damage, but still nice), the power to command undead as a 5th-level cleric, and last of all Horrifying Gaze.

The last one is interesting: every living creature that lays eyes upon a quth-maren must save or 'cower in fear', no duration specified. A liberal reading of the rules would imply it lasts forever, but that's obviously not intended. That said, even if it only lasts for the duration of the encounter that's still a huge swatch of foes to potentially eliminate. Friendliness might be an issue, though, and counterbalances the ability's potential strength.

Considering the QM's overreliance on its single strong attack (which probably has to be modified with Narrowed Gaze to be usable), high HD, and lack of impressive abilities or advancement options, I'm going to go and assign -0 LA here. Still playable if you don't mind being an one-trick-pony, though!

[Efrate]

-0. A whole lot of nothing on 10 HD. Undead HD at that.

[Thurbane]

Bit late to the party, but here's my Planetouched votes:

• Maeluth, Mechanatix, Wispling: +0
• Shyft: +1

---

QUTH-MAREN

• Medium Undead
• 10 RHD (poor BAB, 1 good save, 4 skill points/"level", d12 HD)
• 30 ft speed
• +3 natural AC: a bit underwhelming at your ECL.
• 2 slams 1d6+1d6 acid
• Caustic blood: as well as 1d6 on slam, attackers take 1d6 acid on a hit. Numbers are pretty low for your level.
• Command undead: as a 5th level Cleric; not bad for some minionmancy, but your effective turning level is low. Still, handy for feats and such.
• Horrifying gaze: decent area effect; main problem is it doesn't distinguish friend or foe, and has no "immune for 24 hours on a save" clause. Depending on how your DM rules the ability, you may want to invest in the Narrowed Gaze feat.
• Spit blood: once every 1d4 rounds, spit a 2d6 acid grenade like weapon. A bit underwhelming at this level of play.
• Acid immunity, electricity resistance 15, fire resistance 15: decent defence against energies
• Fast healing 4: as usual, I'm a big fan of FH. Especially handy of you don't have a Dread Necro or other undead-healing resources in the party.
• Turn resistance +2: better than none, but could be higher.
• Undead traits: all the usual immunities and drawbacks.
• Str +6, Dex +2, Con --, Int +2, Wis +4, Cha +4: +18, one non-ability, no penalties. OK, but not amazing for your ECL.
• Smallish but useful racial skill list: stealth and perception mainly. +4 racial bonus to Spot and Move Silently.

Medium humanoid in form. No comment on ability to speak or language: since it is not mindless, I would assume it can speak, but odd that the entry doesn't mention anything.

At significantly less HD, this might be a viable PC, filling some kind of stealth or skillmonkey role. 10 RHD? Sorry, no. Decent defences, small number acid attacks, low level command undead ability, and an area/gaze effect that gets blocked by a bunch of stuff can't make up for 10 lost levels. LA -0 from me too.

[Sutr]

-0 agree with Thurbane.

[Blue Jay]

Quth-Maren LA -0. It has several neat tricks and a variety of different bonuses, so I think it has some versatility; but everything is behind the power curve, so it's going to be a bit of a challenge to make it very good at anything.

[ZamielVanWeber]

10 terrible HD is a high hurdle and Quth-Maren does not begin to cross it. -0

[Temotei]

Agree with Thurbane across the board. Shyft LA +1, the others are LA +0. The quth-maren is -0.

[Inevitability]

Rilmani

Honestly, I'm gonna say I like the old design more than these formless blob-people. You're the ultimate embodiment of Cosmic Neutrality, surely you can wear clothes? The description informs us that the art is meant to depict their 'immaculate beauty' and let's just say I'm glad they spelled that out.

Anyway, rilmani come in three subtypes, all of which share some traits. These are electricity/poison immunity, acid and sonic resistance 20, and a very large list of at-will SLAs (plus 3/day Polymorph). Most notable of the at-will spells are Tongues, the Detect X spells, and Feather Fall.

Auramach

Large-sized, 16 RHD, and with great stats (+12 or +14 is a typical boost, to give an idea). Fast healing 5, natural armor, and DR 15 (overcome by any aligned weapon, of course) round off the defensive package. 50 ft. land speed is quite neat, though another movement mode would've been nice.

Summon Armor is a very cool ability that makes +4 Full Plate appear every time an attack threatens you, disappearing right after so it doesn't intervene with movement. It's unclear how it affects regular armor, though: does it stack? Does it stop working? Or does the first line of the ability ('an auramach rilmani wears no armor') completely bar regular equipment from that slot? Summon Weapon is less impressive (and arguably broken after the size rule redesign), but I guess that creating a giant magic halberd has its uses sometimes.

There's an obligatory summon ability (hardly bad), as well as Antithesis, which damages all creatures that touch you or are hit by you for 2d6 damage if they're good/evil/lawful/chaotic. This stacks, so a LE creature would take 4d6 damage. Pretty useful to have, neutral foes are rare at these levels.

Finally, the SLAs. There's too many to list all, but the most notable ones include at-will Charm Monster, Greater Dispelling, Greater Teleport, and the Magic Circles, and 3/day Dismissal, Fly, Heal, Mind Blank, Prismatic Spray, and True Seeing.

I'm gonna go with +1 LA, which is my to-go rating for 'outsider with a ton of cool stuff but nothing that really wows me'. Feel free to discuss!

Cuprilach

It's very True Neutral to assassinate people whose morality is too extreme for your liking!

12 RHD, medium-size, the same type of DR as auramachs but 5 points lower, and pretty respectable stats (+8 to +12 everywhere). They get the standard arrangement of rogue abilities: Trap Sense, Uncanny Dodge, Hide in Plain Sight, and 3d6 Sneak Attack.

Furthermore, they get Swift Strikes: an interesting ability that lets them make a full attack as a standard action but fatigues them for 1d4 rounds afterwards. With fatigue immunity, this is an excellent ability, and even without it's still quite neat.

A 75% chance to summon some ferrumachs is neat too, if slightly unreliable.

Finally, these guys get some unique SLAs too, which are generally useful but never really great (still, at-will Detect Thoughts/Knock/Locate Creature/Acid Arrow/Misdirection/See Invisibility and 3/day Dimension Door/Enervation/Mislead/Poison are neat enough).

+1 LA once more: less spellcasting potential than the auramachs but a great melee ability and some cool SLAs on the side. Maybe this should be bumped down to +0, but it's good to err on the side of caution.

Ferrumach

8 RHD, DR 10 of the aforementioned kind, surprisingly good stats (+14 strength, +18 constitution, +10 charisma, even though the others are a bit lower).

Special abilities don't really exist, outside of a very unreliable summon and friendly Fear aura. SLAs are pretty cool, consisting of at-will Blur, Silence, Obscuring Mist, See Invisibility, and Command, as well as 3/day Cure Moderate Wounds, Dispel Magic, Ice Storm, and Phantom Steed.

+1 LA again, these seem like they'd make pretty cool bruisers-with-backup-magic.

[danielxcutter]

What the fresh Hells is it with Neutral creatures and what they actually do? I get that you have to give them SOME reason to fight the PCs, but even then.

[JBarca]

these formless blob-people.

Formless? Blob?

That big guy is shredded.

If you can look at this and think "blob" then you must be prime Arnold or something.

[TotallyNotEvil]

3/day Heal, Prismatic Spray and Mind Blank?

Man, being something like a Warlock on a party with these SLA laden outsiders must be quite the ordeal.

Will have to take a closer look to judge better, given the slew of abilities. Where Thurbane and his nice bulletpoint breakdowns?

[Thurbane]

Where Thurbane and his nice bulletpoint breakdowns?

I'll do my best to have it started within next 10 hours or so. I often struggle with multi-entry creatures. I might just do one at a time...

[Blue Jay]

Curious lines about the ferrumach:

"They serve as the foot soldiers in the never-ending battle to protect neutrality...

"...A ferrumach is almost never encountered on foot."

Anyway, in the spreadsheet where I recorded my votes ahead of time, I put down LA +2 for all three rilmani. I think the ability scores (all at +5/level or higher) earned them +1, and then the huge SLA lists and/or Swift Strikes gave them another +1. Not, I'm not sure I still hold to that: thye may be worth a little less, but I'm not entirely committed to that, so my mind could be changed.

Polymorph self was usually replaced with an Alternate Form or Change Shape (Su) ability, so I assume something similar should happen with the rilmani.

Aurumach: The marilith demon has the same HD and got LA +2, and I'm thinking she's a good match for the aurumach rilmani, so I think I'm going to keep my LA +2 for aurumach.

Cuprilach: The leonal and astral deva have the same HD and got LA +2. I think the cuprilach fits there pretty comfortably with those guys, so I'll also vote LA +2 for the cuprilach.

Ferrumach: This one has the highest stat boosts / level, and it gets some good special options that I think make up for the 8 racial Hit Dice, but don't necessarily make it too powerful. I'll vote with Inevitability here: LA +1 for the ferrumach.

[Thurbane]

Traits common to all Rilmani:

• Outsider traits: darkvision 60 ft, cannot be raised or resurrected.
• Immune to electricity: solid.
• Resist acid 20, sonic 20: decent, but sonic isn't going to come up all that often.
• SLAs: at will - comprehend languages, detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law, detect magic, detect thoughts, feather fall, sanctuary, tongues; 3/day - polymorph; the at will are all decent, lowish level utility and detection stuff; 3/day polymorph (or whatever the 3.5 version is) is nice.
• Summon Rilamni: standard outsider summoning schtick, with varying % of success.

Aurumach

• Large Outsider (Extraplanar) with reach.
• 16 HD (of the equally best kind; full BAB, all good saves, 8 skill points/"level").
• Speed 50 ft: solid.
• +14 natural AC.
• Antithesis: extra d6s of damage on melee attacks depending on the alignment of your target. Also activates when you are hit by a natural attack!
• SLAs (on top of the standard for all Rilmani): at will - charm monster, cone of cold, greater dispelling, magic circle against chaos, magic circle against evil, magic circle against good, magic circle against law, magic missile, mass suggestion, teleport without error (self plus maximum load of objects only); 3/day - dismissal, fly, forbiddance, heal, mind blank, prismatic spray, true seeing. CL 17. Very decent suite of SLAs there.
• Summon rilmani: looks to be automatic - 2d4 Ferrumachs or 1d2 Cuprilachs. Very nice.
• DR 15/alignment: decent.
• Fast healing 5: as always, I'm a big fan of any fast healing.
• SR 30: solid, event at your starting level, but doesn't scale.
• Summon armor: +4 full plate at the snap of your fingers that appears and disappears as required? Yes please!
• Summon weapon: +3 halberd at the snap of your fingers? Ditto.
• Str +12, Dex +8, Con +14, Int +12, Wis +14, Cha +16: net +76, bonuses to all abilities, no penalties!
• Decent racial skill list, but you'll probably be looking at some cross class once you factor in your Int modifier.

Large humanoid in form, can speak and can clearly wield items and manipulate objects.

Very solid chassis, at the cost of 16 class levels. Full BAB, lots of defenses, solid ability scores, and a significant SLA arsenal - there's some absolute gems there. You could easily stand alongside someone like a Warlock or most initiators and carry your weight, and then some.

I'm voting LA +2 for now, and will post Cupilach as time permits.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Put me down for LA +1 for all of them.

I can't help look at that long list of SLAs and think "where's overland flight, or animate dead, or orb of acid, or scrying, or plane shift, or haste, or...?". That's not really fair, I suppose, because rilmani get a nice range of SLAs, but nevertheless there are a lot of reasons to play a caster over a rilmani still. I know I'd rather be something with true casting, because those SLAs just feel too confining and closed to optimization--you can't use metamagic, you can't advance it with PrCs, it doesn't interact with most CL boosters, you can't add spells to the list. It's a frustrating problem with a lot of outsiders. It might be worth redesigning certain SLA users as list casters. Something to think about, hmm...

Anyway, I think these guys have enough SLAs to be compared to a warlock or list caster, but for the reasons mentioned above, I think they remain tier 3. However, rilmani compensate for the lack of casting versatility with an excellent chassis, which is pretty relevant for in tier 3, so I'll go with LA +1.

[Thurbane]

BTW, I only just got that their names are based on metals: Gold, Copper and Iron. Duh.

Spoiler

Show

Traits common to all Rilmani:

• Outsider traits: darkvision 60 ft, cannot be raised or resurrected.
• Immune to electricity: solid.
• Resist acid 20, sonic 20: decent, but sonic isn't going to come up all that often.
• SLAs: at will - comprehend languages, detect chaos, detect evil, detect good, detect law, detect magic, detect thoughts, feather fall, sanctuary, tongues; 3/day - polymorph; the at will are all decent, lowish level utility and detection stuff; 3/day polymorph (or whatever the 3.5 version is) is nice.
• Summon Rilamni: standard outsider summoning schtick, with varying % of success.

Cuprilach

• Medium Outsider (Extraplanar).
• 12 HD (of the equally best kind; full BAB, all good saves, 8 skill points/"level").
• Speed 40 ft, climb 20 ft: decent.
• +15 natural AC: nice.
• Sneak attack +3d6: as a 5th level Rogue. A little lacking if that is your main schtick.
• Summon rilmani: 75% chance for 1d3 Ferrumachs. Three out of four success rate isn't bad.
• Swift Strikes: so if I'm reading this right, full attack as a standard action, but then you're fatigued for 1d4 rounds. There are a few ways to become immune to fatigued out there, so...
• Hide in plain sight: very nice.
• Trap sense: but strangely, no trapfinding? Of fairly limited use, really.
• Uncanny dodge: decent, espcially if you can stack it with another source for Improved Uncanny Dodge.
• SLAs (on top of the standard for all Rilmani): at will - detect thoughts, knock, locate creature, Melf ’s acid arrow, misdirection, see invisibility; 3/day - dimension door, enervation, mislead, poison. CL 12th. A solid SLA list for any assassin/rogue type, but nothing really earth shattering there.
• DR 10/alignment: not bad.
• SR 25: decent, but doesn't scale.
• Str +8, Dex +14, Con +10, Int +8, Wis +8, Cha +12: net +60, bonuses to all abilities, no penalties!
• Decent rogue-like skill list.

Medium humanoid in form, can speak and can clearly wield items and manipulate objects.

So you're basically a rogue/assassin type, with a more robust chassis, but with less sneak attack and more limited skills. No evasion or trap finding either. The SLAs do add versatility, but honestly, you'd look second rate compared to something like a Beguiler in terms of spell output and spell utility. However, with a BAB of +12, the ability to full attack as a standard action is very nice, especially if you can work around the fatigue/cooldown.

Bit torn on this one. It doesn't "rogue" as well as a 12th level rogue, but it does get a lot of other stuff to make up for it. I'll vote LA +1 for now.

I'll try to get to the Ferrumach in the next few hours.

[danielxcutter]

So in a similar boat as Blackguards? Not quite the dedicated sneak as a Rogue but a whole lot better than most other martials, and a bit of magical abilities to back that up?

[Luccan]

So these are the creatures born with hearts full of neutrality.

I think I agree with +1 down the line, but I have no strong feelings one way or the other. We'll see what others say as votes roll in.